


Cross-Cultural Exchange

by RoyHankins



Category: DCU (Comics), 僕のヒーローアカデミア | Boku no Hero Academia | My Hero Academia
Genre: Characters tagged as they get focus chapters, Gen, Not trying to Ship Tease but might do so anyway, Rape/Non-Con is for Raven's backstory, Way more characters than that, only mentioned not shown
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-04
Updated: 2020-07-03
Packaged: 2020-12-01 20:21:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 31
Words: 71,569
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20888345
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RoyHankins/pseuds/RoyHankins
Summary: Once a year, three of the most prestigious hero schools in the world send half a freshman class to one of the others, allowing all their students to learn more about how other heroes are trained. That's how Class 1-B ended up on the United State's East Coast to attend a month at the Manchester School for Gifted Youth, and why twenty students and two teachers from Titan Academy are going to be staying at UA for the same length of time. After all, there's a lot for everyone to learn, isn't there?





	1. Prologue

It was just as Fall was starting to turn into Winter, with the temperature dropping every day and the leaves nearly non-existent on each tree, when Class 1-A of UA High School learned of their next big event. Once all the students had filed into the classroom that Friday morning, Aizawa looked out at them all, and waited until Iida had shushed everyone before he started talking. “I have an important announcement.” Like every Aizawa speech, it started bland and dull. “Starting next week, we’ll be taking part in an academic exchange program with two other hero schools overseas.”

The teacher paused there for a few seconds, knowing full well he had the teenagers' attention and wanted to draw it out of a little just to spite the well-rested pains in his ass. “Specifically, Class 1-B will be going to learn at the Manchester School for Gifted Youth, while you all stay here.” More than a few members of the class let out annoyed sighs that they’d be missing such an excursion. “At the same time, half the freshman class at Titan Academy will be living here and studying with you all. This way, you can all learn more about different ways of approaching hero work and make connections that could be useful later on.” There was a lot of excited muttering from that, but almost immediately one student raised his hand with a question. Aizawa let out a sigh. “Yes, Midoriya?”

At the beginning of the year, Izuku Midoriya was the kind of shy student who raised his hand a lot but always blushed and stammered once everyone was actually looking at him. That still happened from time to time, but his experiences so far had built up enough confidence that he could actually ask his teacher a question without pausing. “Mr. Aizawa, how is that going to work? Titans Academy doesn’t teach students individually, but instead places them in five person teams who succeed and fail as a group.”

Of course, Aizawa reflected, it would be Midoriya to bring up the very thing he was going to explain next to the class. “You’re correct, that is one of the major differences between our teaching styles. This is done because, while here in Japan heroes most often work in agencies, either for them or running them, in America superheroes are on teams more often than they aren’t. This is about teaching you all something new, though, so while our guests will be here, you’ll all be in teams as well, and you’ll be graded in your teams for the next month.”

Some of the students looked like they found that idea interesting, but more than a few looked skeptical. “What, so I’ve gotta do everything carrying a bunch of dead weight?! There’s no way I’d ever join a damn hero team! Why would this ever matter to me?!” Of course it would be Bakugo to object so quickly and vocally. But several other students, including Todoroki and Kaminari, seemed to agree with them, as far as Aiawa could tell from their facial expressions.

Giving the bombastic bombshell of a young hero a glare, Aizawa responded, “Don’t speak out of turn, Bakugo. But since you asked: even if you don’t join a team as a pro hero, you will be forced to work together with other heroes more often than you’d expect. You, perhaps more than anyone else, should know that getting better at socializing is important for your future.” Sure, it was a bit hypocritical coming from Aizawa, but it was something Bakugo needed to hear regardless. “Now then, regarding the teams, I bet you’d all like to form team yourselves, pairing up with those you feel you’d work with the best. Am I correct?” Everyone murmured their assent, clearly looking at those they wanted to partner with the most. Giving his best sadistic smile, Aizawa told his class, “Well, that’s too bad!”

Pulling out a piece of paper from inside his scarf, Aizawa informed them of their fates. “Instead, your teachers have put together teams, each with a designated leader. Other than that, roles can be determined for any task as you desire. Momo Yayarozu,” he started, looking at every student as he read out their names. “You will lead a team comprised of yourself, Mashirao Ojiro, Koji Koda, Fumikage Tokoyami, and Hanta Sero.” The members of that first team all looked at their new leader, who already seemed unsure at the task before her.

“Tenya Iida, your team includes Shoto Todoroki, Rikido Sato, Eijiro Kirishima, and Yuga Aoyama. Bakugo, you’ve got your own team to play with, and your teammates will be Asuya Asui, Minoru Mineta, Toru Hagakure, and Mina Ashido.” Iida didn’t appear to have any issues with his listed team, though with him it was always hard to tell. Bakugo, on the other hand, was looking like he hated every name read after his own. “That just leaves Midoriya’s team: Kyoka Jiro, Mezo Shoji, Ochaco Uraraka, and Denki Kaminari. If any of you want to change teams, tough luck. These teams are permanent for the next month, end of story.” It was just about time to actually start class, but then Aizawa remembered one last thing. “Oh, and you’ll all be using a buddy system with the out-of-country students. You’ll know who you’re with when they arrive, and their safety is your responsibility.” There was a knock on the door, which meant Present Mic was there for his lesson. Honestly, while Aizawa saw the benefits to the student exchange, considering who it meant he’d be needing to spend time with for the next month, he privately was just as annoyed with what was to come as Bakugo was.

* * *

There wasn’t a lot that Dick Grayson didn’t love about teaching at Titan Academy. Perhaps one of his absolute favorite parts, though, was the yearly student exchange with UA High. Mostly because it allowed him to spend time with one of his favorite overseas heroes. He and the rest of his class had just arrived in Japan less than an hour ago, but the kids had gotten the chance to set themselves up in their new temporary living space in the guest dorm UA was providing for them. That left him and his fellow teacher to meet up with Aizawa and his bunch of newbies at the track field. As soon as he saw that curmudgeonly crabapple, Dick couldn’t stop grinning. “Hey, Eraserhead! Miss me?”

The kids were all looking at Dick with either confusion or awe, clearly depending on whether they recognized him or not. True, his hero costume had been redesigned lately after he’d decided to go with a more disco look, with yellow shoulder fringe and a brighter hue of blue, but how could any of the young heroes not know about- “Nightwing,” Aizawa intoned. “I’ve missed you as much as a blow to the head." Then, he turned to look at the woman standing at Dick’s side and nodded his head in a gesture of actual respect. “Omen, it’s good to see you again.”

Lilith was looking as radiant as ever, her bright orange hair contrasting nicely with her costume’s mix of green hues. Her dazzling smile was wasted on Aizawa’s sleep deprived mug. “It’s good to see you too, Shota.” Then, her attention focused on the students all standing around in their own hero costumes. “My name is Lilith Clay, and I’m happy to be working with you all.” Something in her eyes became even more warm and caring, though how that was possible Dick didn’t know, and she added, “If any of you face any interpersonal conflicts in the coming month, please know you can come to me for help. My door will always be open.”

[LILITH CLAY/OMEN! HER QUIRK: PREMONITION! THIS PSYCHIC QUIRK LETS HER LOOK INTO POSSIBLE FUTURES, THOUGH THE FARTHER SHE LOOKS, THE MORE POSSIBILITIES THERE ARE! -Present Mic]

Ready and waiting to step into the spotlight, Dick addressed the tykes himself. “My name’s Dick Grayson, and I go by the hero name ‘Nightwing’. I’m the class’s actual homeroom teacher, while Lilith acts as a guidance counselor and therapist for our students.” Then, he pointedly looked down at a wrist that didn’t have a watch on it, which got a laugh out of a spiky-haired student. “Well, look at the time! My class should be here any minute!” Sure enough, the kids were soon visible approaching the field, all of them dressed in their own tailor-made hero costumes.

“I’m excited to have the chance to teach all of you, and to see what you can teach me and my students. Now then, it’s introduction time! First up,” Dick started, pointing at the first group of five, in the lead among everyone else. “Is the team Scientific American! Led by Virgil Hawkins, there’s also Grant Emerson, Karen Beecher, Mal Duncan, and Antonia Monetti. They’re the only one of my teams where everyone has a Quirk!” That got some interesting reactions from the students who weren’t aware that not all American heroes had Quirks.

Once they could better see the next group, some actual gasps came out, though Dick didn’t think they were trying to be rude. “Up next is In Your Head. Team Leader is M’gann M’orzz with backup from Joseph Wilson, Kole Weathers, Tara Markov, and Cassandra Sandsmark; this team has a wide range of capabilities but as their name implies, you better watch what you think around them.

“In the most suggestive title of the lot is Hard and Fast, coming up third. The one in charge there is Avery Ho, and behind her is Cassandra Wayne, Stephanie Brown, Jaime Reyes, and Traci Thurston. So far, they’ve managed to beat more than a dozen school records when it comes to practical exams.” By this point, most of his class was standing opposite Aizawa’s, everyone looking curiously at students on the opposite side. His own kids were still grouped into teams, but the Japanese student heroes were still in a jumbled dispersed group.

Finally the stragglers arrived, looking a little embarrassed by this somewhat late arrival. From the blush on their leader’s cheeks, Dick knew he had some kind of explanation for his teacher later. “And, bringing up the back, is the New Teen Titans. That’s Tim Drake, the third Robin, in the front, and behind him is the rest of the team: Garfield Logan, Victor Stone, Raven Roth, and Princess Koriand’r of the planet Tamaran.” Now that everyone was assembled, Dick explained, “I’ll be calling out matching names, and those are the buddy pairs. Try to play nice, since you’ll be stuck with each other for the next month.” From there, he read out the names, and once everyone was paired up they were sent out to do two-person exercises, starting with stretching before leading to light sparring. Looking at the forty kids gathered together, Dick Grayson was confident that this year was going to be something special.


	2. Chapter 1-Detectives and Lightning

From the first moment Izuku Midoriya heard that they were going to be spending the next month training with students from Titans Academy, arguably the most influential and prestigious school for aspiring heroes in the United States of America, he was filled with excitement. Most of his notes were from Japanese heroes, since they were the ones in his streets and on the television. Sure, he’d done some online research on various international superheroes, this was Midoriya after all, but there was still so much to learn from the largest hero community in the world. Things were very different in America, after all, and the student he’d been partnered with using the school’s buddy system was a great example of that.

Both Midoriya and Tim Drake were in their full costumes, standing on the grass of the track field, and sparring. The pairs were all allowed to set the rules of their practice sessions as they wanted, and it hadn’t taken much thought for these two heroes to agree on their limits: no Quirk use for Midoriya, no support items from Tim. Both were sweaty from sparring for nearly half an hour at this point. Part of that was from the costumes, but mostly it came from the stress of keeping combat going this long. Sure, this wasn’t some bare-knuckle brawl, it was slower than that, but it was fighting nonetheless.

By this point, Tim had landed two blows for every one of Midoriya’s, but the exchange rate was a little more complicated than that. Tim was undoubtedly faster than his sparring partner when said partner wasn’t allowed to use his Quirk, but even without tapping into One for All Midoriya hit much harder, with his punches and kicks alike. Having properly sussed out each other’s strengths and weaknesses, there was a lot less in the way of blows and a lot more thinking. Each was watching the other for any hint on the next move.  _ Let’s see...he’s been using more small, quick jabs, especially from his right arm. But when I dodge to the left he usually has a second strike waiting, so if I... _ Midoriya’s thoughts were stopped when he saw Tim’s footing shift, and this time Midoriya was ready, raising one arm to block the blow and prepping his feet to deliver a low kick right afterwards. It would have worked great if Tim hadn’t used his left arm instead, jabbing Midoriya right in his solar plexus. Tim hadn’t been able to really put his weight behind the blow, but it was still enough to stagger Midoriya a little.

“You up for a break?” Tim asked, the strain from their sparring showing even with the domino mask covering his eyes, his black hair matted to his head from the sweat. Midoriya took Tim’s open hand to steady himself, then they walked off the track field to the nearby cold water bottles stashed inside of a plastic ice chest. Tim got to it first and tossed Midoriya some much needed refreshment, and while he was taking his first steady sip, Tim asked him, “So, you’ve got to tell me what it’s like to inherit One for All.”

Suddenly, Midoriya was choking on his water from sharply inhaling with a mouthful of liquid still unswallowed. After settling himself where he was no longer in danger of asphyxiation, Midoriya looked around, comforted by the fact there was no one close enough to them to have heard Tim’s question. Now, Midoriya was sweating even more somehow, and wanting to look anywhere except at Tim. “Uh, wha-what are you talking about? My Quirk’s actually called Full Cowl, and, uh-”

Midoriya’s expert attempt at deception made Tim laugh, the kind of quiet laugh of someone who wasn’t used to sharing it with other people. “Don’t worry, I haven’t told anyone, and I’m not about to, at least without your permission.” That certainly helped settle Midoriya’s nerves, and as he was starting to calm down, he focused on Tim. He was a little taller than Midoriya was, with a more slender build. His costume was similar to the two Robin’s who had come before him, but with a larger emphasis on Red and Black as the main colors, with green accents and a yellow interior for his otherwise black cape. Oh, and he was smiling at Midoriya in a way that felt weirdly familiar.

Now that Midoriya didn’t have to worry about explaining to All Might how he’s somehow shared the secret with another student hero, he started wondering about something. “So, how exactly did you know about, uh, about my Quirk?” Just because Tim knew, that didn’t mean Midoirya wanted to be speaking about it openly around his classmates. Then, remembering his sparring partner’s hero name, a possibility came to mind. “Wait, did Batman tell you? Does he know?!” The Caped Crusader frequently came up in talks of the most influential American superheroes, despite the fact he was completely Quirkless, and he held the title for many of World’s Greatest Detective.

Midoriya was pretty sure Tim’s eyes widened at the question, but with the mask over his eyes that replaced them with solid white, he couldn’t really be sure. “No, Mr. Wayne didn’t tell me, though I’m also pretty sure he knows.” Suddenly looking somewhat bashful, with a light blush gracing his pale cheeks, Tim, continued, “So, when I was starting Middle School, I got really into heroes, and I studied a lot of them, including All Might. While I was researching him, I put together the clues about One for All, and then with him losing his powers after that big fight, I knew he’d passed it on. From there, it wasn’t hard to figure out it was you. The timeline fit, you’re in the first class at UA he’s ever taught, you’ve been seen together a lot, it was a pretty for-sure deduction.”

[[TIM DRAKE/ROBIN III! HIS QUIRK...WAIT A SEC, HE DOESN’T HAVE ONE! THAT’S RIGHT BOYS AND GIRLS, THIS HERO DOESN’T HAVE ANY POWERS, BUT DON’T LET THAT FOOL YOU! ROBIN CAN HOLD HIS OWN IN A FIGHT, AND WITH MORE SUPPORT ITEMS THAT YOU CAN IMAGINE, PLUS HIS KILLER SMARTS, HE MORE THAN LIVES UP TO THE LEGACY OF HIS HERO NAME! -Present Mic]]

That was a lot to put together, and Midoriya was more than a little astonished that someone his age was such a good investigator. But, remembering the question that started this all, he finally answered it as best he could. “Well, being his successor is...a lot. Even if no one else knows I’m supposed to be the next symbol of peace, I still do, y’know? Sometimes, I just wish I had someone to talk about it with.”

They’d started walking back to where they’d been sparring, but suddenly Midoriya felt a hand on his shoulder. Turning to look, he saw Tim was giving him a warm smile. “Well, you have me now, right? Plus,” he winced a little, and they both started walking again, “I can kind of relate. I had to work so hard to be accepted as the third Robin, especially after what happened to Jason. They were considering abandoning the name entirely, but I proved myself to Mr. Wayne. Still, I wonder if I’m doing the right thing, if I’m the kind of person who actually deserves what I’ve been gifted with.” Midoriya nodded, amazed to find someone with such a similar experience. To be sure, their actual situations were almost more different than similar, but sharing their struggles together felt...nice.

* * *

“Alright everybody, enough training, gather around!” Nightwing’s voice pulled Avery away from her workout with her assigned partner, Tenya Iida. The stick-in-the-mud supreme was actually pretty good for workout ideas, since neither of them thought sparring would be the best idea. Well, maybe she’d led him to think that was the case, but whatever. With a skip in her step, she darted off towards her teacher, leaving Iida to follow after her grumbling about unsafe running speeds. What a geek, she wasn’t even using her Quirk. Once everybody had gathered around the teachers, Nightwing grinned at everyone. “That was great work, everybody, you’re starting off strong!”

The other class’s teacher, Eraserjeans or something, continued looking and sounding unpleasant as he added, “I think ‘great’ is a little much, but it could have gone worse. More important, you all have classes to get to, right now. The students from Titan Academy will be using the same schedule as Class 1-B, so you won’t be seeing much of each other until school’s out for the day. What you all do between the end of classes for the day and your curfew is entirely up to you, but just remember that the American students can only leave the campus with their designated buddy. Anyone found breaking that rule will be punished, with their negligent partner.”

After everyone had a little time to change into school clothes, it was time for actual schooling and stuff. None of it felt entirely foreign to Avery, though she did wish there was a teacher with Present Mic’s level of enthusiasm back home. Since he taught English though, and they already spoke it, he was teaching them about Japanese culture instead. Schoolwork was never much of an issue for Avery though, and before she knew it class was over and she was tapping Iida on the shoulder in the hall. He turned his sharply-cut block-shaped had to look at her. “Wanna race?”

Ever since she learned they’d been paired up, this was what she’d wanted to do. Actually convincing the class rep to use the track field outside approved class time had taken half an hour, but she knew it would be worth it. They’d each changed once again, this time into regular athletics attire. The solid blue tank top and shorts look accentuated Iida’s build far better than the suit of armor or school uniform did, at least according to Avery. The guy was built like a star quarterback, with rippling muscles and a wide build to support them. The metal pipes sticking out of his calves were a bit odd, sure, but Avery did her best to stare at the more appealing parts of him.

Avery’s own pale skin was covered in a bright purple sports jersey, one for the Central City Stars, and shorts that showed off her long legs. Those were basically the only part of her body than hinted towards her talent at running or her position as a student hero. Avery had always been thin, and even half a year at a hero school hadn’t been enough to build much in the way of visible musculature. It was something she was a little self-conscious of, though she did her best to hide it.

Both team leaders were each standing on one end of the sprinting track, and the plan was to run from one end to the other, a half kilometer sprint. “Ready, set...go!” Iida announced, as he immediately took off. He’d primed the engines in his legs before the countdown, so they were already bellowing fire and increasing his speed quite a bit right from the get go. Avery stood at the beginning, watching her assigned partner run with interest. He had pretty good form, aside from the way his arms were moving. In fact, she’d noticed his arms moving in weird ways a lot so far that day. Always in right angles, too. As Iida hit the halfway mark, the fire pouring out of his engine turned a bright blue as he yelled, “Recipro... **burst!** ” Now he was really going fast, and still had no clue that Avery hadn’t moved from her spot.

Nodding her head at the sight, seeing what she was pretty sure was Iida’s top speed, she stretched her legs a little, and as she did sparks of electricity began openly dancing across her body. Her fuschia pupils sparked with lightning, and Avery let the Speed Force into her body. From her perspective, the world slowed to a crawl as she moved between the two ends of the track in what felt to her like seconds. When she passed Iida, he looked as still as a statue. In point of fact, she actually finished the track in close to a quarter of one second, blasting through the sound barrier and creating a sonic boom in the process.

[[AVERY HO/THE FLASH! HER QUIRK: SPEED FORCE! HER BODY ABSORBS ELECTROMAGNETIC ENERGY AND STORES IT! WHEN SHE WANTS TO GO FAST, SHE CAN TURN THAT ELECTRIC RESERVOIR INTO A CONNECTION TO SOMETHING CALLED THE SPEED FORCE, ALLOWING HER TO GO REALLY, REALLY FAST! THE AMOUNT OF ELECTRICITY SHE’S STORED DETERMINES HOW FAST SHE CAN GO AND FOR HOW LONG! -Present Mic]]

Suddenly, she was looking at Iida running from the opposite direction, and she could tell he was surprised by her burst of speed from the look on his normally stoic face, his mouth agape and his eyes wide. He didn’t stop running though, barreling forward using his super move until he met her side by side at the finish line. Suddenly looking very sweaty, while Avery didn’t look like she’d just gone beyond Mach 12, Iida looked at her with amazement in his eyes. “That was incredible. I’ve never seen speed like that before.” Then he reached out a large, calloused hand.

“Thanks,” she responded, shaking his hand with her own, much more slender, equivalent. Feeling smugness and adrenaline blasting through her veins, she gave him a wide smile and told him, “I should apologize though, I probably should have said before, but I’m Avery Ho, and I’m the Fastest Woman Alive.”


	3. Chapter 2-Macarons and Cupcakes

When Yuga Aoyama first heard they’d be training with fellow student heroes from America, he found the idea_ très magnifiqu _ . After all, there were so many more heroes in that country who knew how to work with **style** . But he was not matched with a hero who sparkled as he did. No, Aoyama was instead partnered with a girl who wore casual clothes for a hero costume and woke him up an hour before class started so she could explore the city. Despite the lack of proper sleep, Aoyama did his best to appear _ parfait _ as they left the school grounds together, the young man already wearing his school uniform.

Traci Thurston, his designated partner, was wearing the same clothes in the early Tuesday morning that she’d worn for practice yesterday, as well as during her classes. Said _ ensemble _ was a t-shirt that looked quite loose on her, a pair of blue jeans, and goggles that hung around her neck. It made no sense whatsoever to Aoyama. The girl was _ jolie _ , even without make-up or beautiful clothing. With the right touches, and a proper costume, she could be _ étourdissante _ . Feeling tense with how silent she was as they walked down the street together, Aoyama chose to speak up first. “So, _ mademoiselle _, how did you sleep last night?”

The girl was walking a few feet ahead of Aoyama, so he wasn’t able to see her face as she responded. “Eh, could have been better, could have been worse.” Apparently, that was all she had to say on the topic. They wandered aimlessly for a few minutes when Traci said something again. “So, not that I don’t love just walking around for no reason, but do you know any good cafes or anything open this early?”

One of the many things Aoyama prided himself in was his exquisite knowledge of local cuisine, especially that worth spending his money on. “_ Oui _ , there is a _ joli café _ just two blocks that way. Their pastries are _ très délicieux _.” Just thinking about how their authentic macarons melted in the mouth made Aoyama want to walk there faster.

To his surprise, his words made Traci laugh, the sound much kinder than he was expecting, for some reason. “I’m currently flunking French class back home, but I’m going to guess that means that their food is really good.”

That was how the two found themselves sitting at the outside table of Aoyama’s favorite cafe, each with a small plate of macarons in front of them. Well, Aoyama’s were at least still there. Traci devoured hers within seconds of sitting down. Aoyama was delicately nibbling at the edge of the most wonderful honey vanilla flavored treat when Traci asked him a question. “So, are you actually from France? Or do you just like peppering it into conversations to sound cool?”

For a moment, Aoyama was truly stunned. In the entire time he’d been going to school this year, not a single student had ever asked him about that. Excited to finally explain his back-story to someone willing to listen, he began, “You see, my _ mère _ is from France, and I spent much of my time as a child there.” It had actually been some time since he’d thought of the place where he grew up, his eyes tearing up dramatically at the recollection. “I do miss it, but I would not give up my school or classmates to return there.” With that said, Aoyama went back to eating his own sweets, before remembering something. “ _ Excusez moi s'il vous plait _, but I have a question for you as well. You never told me yesterday what your Quirk is, if you don’t mind me asking.”

Their training in the morning had been something else. She’d let him try and shoot her with his Navel Laser, but she didn’t try and dodge. Instead, all she’d done was make hand gestures and say words Aoyama didn’t understand, and suddenly his laser would change direction out of nowhere or disappear mid-stream. He’d exhausted himself trying to land a hit, but in the end all he had to show for it was a tummy-ache. His questions made her laugh again, the notes ringing through the early morning air without much of an audience to appreciate their beauty. “I’m Quirkless, actually.” Then, she reached out with a hand, mumbled something under her breath, and a mug containing what looked like hot chocolate appeared out of thin air. “Also, I’m a mage.”

[TRACI THURSTON/TRACI THIRTEEN! ANOTHER KID WITH NO QUIRK, BUT THIS ONE’S STILL GOT POWERS! SHE SPECIALIZES IN WHAT SHE CALLS ‘URBAN MAGIC’, AND SHE’S GOT A LOT OF TRICKS IN HER BOOK OF SPELLS! -Present Mic]

Suddenly, Aoyama felt somewhat uncomfortable. He’d known that Quirkless heroes were something culturally accepted in America, where the ratio of Quirkless people to people with Quirks was closer to 50:50 than the 20:80 it was in Japan. Still, his years in Japan had made Quirkless people more of a taboo, and he felt very bad for assuming she had a Quirk. “_ Mes excuses _, Traci, for assuming that you possessed a Quirk.”

To his surprise, she just shrugged. “Don’t apologize too much, Aoyama, it’s fine with me. I’ve had magic so long that I honestly never really think of myself as Quirkless, y’know?” Then, she looked at a nearby clock. “Whoa, class starts in ten, we should head back.” Considering it had taken them half an hour to get to the cafe, Aoyama was now terrified of being late, well aware of how his teacher rewarded those who tested his patience. Traci, on the other hand, didn’t seem fazed at all. But as she rose from her seat, she walked over to the door of the cafe, then used some white chalk (that seemed to appear in her hand from nowhere) to sketch glyphs that were completely foreign to Aoyama on the door. Then, when she opened it, what he saw inside was not the interior of the cafe, but instead a hallway in UA, near their classrooms. “What are you waiting for?” she asked, still holding the door for him. Sure enough, when Aoyama went through the door, he found himself back at school. “That was fun,” she told him with a slap on his back. “Let’s do it again tomorrow!”

* * *

When Stephanie Brown had first met her huge, hulking assigned partner for this exchange program, she’d despaired on what they’d find to do together in the time they would be forced to spend together. So now that she was standing in the Class 1-A dorms, mixing some frosting while watching Rikido Sato carefully pull out the first tray of cupcakes they’d made together, she was definitely baffled, but happy. “They look great,” he told her as he inspected them with a practiced eye. He set the tin on a nearby counter and grabbed an identical one next to it, the molds filled with vanilla batter. “They need to completely cool before we can frost them, so you can finish up the frosting at your own pace, okay?”

Not only did it turn out that the big guy was a master baker, but he had, so far, pretty nice as well. “Understood, captain!” Stephanie jokingly replied, idly shifting a lock of blonde hair behind her ear as she continued mixing the frosting. Sato was the one who suggested this, and considering his sugar-based Quirk it made sense why baking was something he enjoyed in his free time. They’d had enough time for Stephanie to change out of her more formal school clothes and into a purple hoodie with her favorite pair of worn down blue jeans. There was no special reason for these cupcakes, but when Stephanie had suggested making a bunch and giving them to both their classes, he’d loved the idea. “This is weird to admit,” she admitted to him, “but this is my first time doing anything like this. I usually just eat take-out and snacks.”

Sato was filling a third cupcake tin with batter, his back turned to her, but she could see how his back muscles tensed for a moment, just before he asked, “Your parents didn’t teach you how? Is baking less popular in America?”

“I don’t know,” she said with a wince, debating whether she should drop this bombshell on him now or try and hide it. Then, she remembered her hero codename and stifled a badly-timed laugh. She was the Spoiler, right? “I, uh, have a complicated family situation. My mom and I don’t talk a lot, she doesn’t approve of me being a hero without a Quirk. And dad...he’s a villain, an E-list loser who goes by Cluemaster. I became a hero in the first place through foiling his schemes.”

Talking about her dad wasn’t something Stephanie did a lot, unless she and her best friend Cassandra Wayne were in the mood for being sad together. Since Sato wasn’t facing her, she couldn’t see his exact reaction, but more than anything she just hoped it wasn’t pity. Stephanie Brown didn’t become a hero to be pitied. “I can understand that, I think,” Sato finally replied. “My grandmother, on my mom’s side, she was a villain. A really bad one, apparently.” He paused for a second before adding, “My parents don’t talk about her a lot. But my mom...it was really hard to convince her to let me come to UA, especially after what happened with Bakugo.” Huh, so they had more in common than she thought. “Uh, if you don’t mind me asking, what’s it like being Quirkless?”

[STEPHANIE BROWN/SPOILER! THIS QUIRKLESS STUDENT HAS MORE HOURS OF HERO WORK LOGGED IN THAN ANYONE ELSE IN HER YEAR AT TITAN ACADEMY! WITH A QUICK MIND AND A GREAT KNACK FOR TECH, STEPH WAS A NARROW RUNNER-UP TO TAKING THE ROBIN TITLE! -Present Mic]

Oh, that question. Stephanie decided to go with her standard answer. “What’s it like having a Quirk?” Even back in America, so many people had Quirks that it was the presumed default. Being born Quirkless was well on its way to being an actual disability, no matter how much Stephanie and those like her fought against that mindset and labeling. “It means I have to work twice as hard as everyone else here to get to the same place.”

Sato had finished his batter pouring, and had turned to look at her. His eyes drifted down to her mixing bowl, and he simply told her, “You’re mixing too hard, you need to slow down.” Stephanie hadn’t even realized that her stress with the topic had been transferred to the idle task she’d had her hands doing. “Isn’t that Drake guy also Quirkless?”

It took a moment for Stephanie to realize who he was talking about, but when she did Stephanie let out a sigh. “Yeah, Tim and I are both Quirkless. There are actually quite a few more in the class who are, but they all have powers of some kind anyway, we don’t.” Now lost in old memories, Stephanie was looking past Sato, past the kitchen, her eyes unfocused. “Did you know I tried out for the Robin Program? Got pretty far, too.”

She didn’t really know it, but Sato was looking at her in confusion. “What’s the Robin Program?”

That broke her out of the trance, shocked that anyone could be unaware of it. “You know who Bruce Wayne is, right?” That got a nod from Sato, at the very least. “Well, he’s Quirkless. Wanting to reach out and offer help to kids like him, he started two scholarship opportunities for Quirkless kids who wanted to become heroes: the Robin Program and the Batgirl Program. Our teacher, Nightwing, was the first Robin. The second one, Jason Todd...he’s not around anymore. Tim and I were both training to become the third Robin, but he beat me.” Realizing how that might have sounded, she quickly added, “I don’t hold it against him or anything! Honestly, Tim deserves it, he’s an amazing hero. Better than I’ll ever be.”

To her surprise, Sato shook his head, looking at her like he’d bitten a burnt cookie, as he pulled the second tray of cupcakes out of the oven. “I don’t know about that. We sparred yesterday, remember? I was afraid of fighting you all out at first, but you wiped the floor with me!” Then, thinking about what she’d just said, he asked, “Why don’t you try out for the Batgirl Program? Or is there already one of those too?”

Ah, the question she heard from her best friend every other day. “That’s what Cass keeps telling me. But I don’t want to be Batgirl, I wanted to be Robin! Honestly, she should be the next Batgirl. I bet if she entered the Program, she’d get it like that!” she exclaimed, snapping her fingers for emphasis. Stephanie sagged, suddenly feeling very tired. “I don’t know what I’m doing anymore...”

Suddenly, a spatula entered her field of vision, and she looked from it to the smiling guy holding it. “Well, I do. The first batch is cool enough to frost. You’re frosting cupcakes.” The simple sincerity he said it with made Stephanie laugh, and she had to think, even if just for an afternoon, that maybe this was enough. Maybe there was nothing to make up for. Nothing to live up to. Maybe...she could just be Stephanie Brown.


	4. Chapter 3-Mountains and Molehills

“ **Again!!!** ” With a mild effort, Katsuki Bakugo rose from the training room floor, shouting his command to the partner he’d been assigned. They’d been sparring for the last hour, and though Bakugo’s tank top was drenched in sweat he didn’t even notice. They still had time before class, and he needed this. At first, he’d been annoyed with the girl they’d given him, but it had only taken that first day for him to realize she was the ultimate challenge.

Said partner was currently still floating in the air, however the hell she did that, looking at him with blatant concern on her green freaking face. It pissed Bakugo off. “Alright,” M’gann M’orzz replied, her chipper voice tempered with reluctance. With that consent given, Bakugo got into proper position, leaning forward with his hands behind him, and set off an explosion using his Quirk to fly through the air in her direction. The Martian girl reached out with one open hand and for a moment Bakugo felt an unseen force begin to take hold of him.

Just before it could really grab him, Bakugo extended one hand and let out a smaller blast, sending him out to one side and away from her telekinetic grasp. A few more explosions were needed to keep him airborne and on the move; she needed a good idea of where he was to use her power so he had to keep agile. All of this was taking its toll, and Bakugo could feel the strain he was putting on his body. But that was how he was going to get stronger, no matter how much it took. Finally, once she was having an issue keeping an eye on him, he detonated one last blast and did the unexpected: retreating behind one of the room’s columns of rock.

Once out of her sight, Bakugo fought the pain flaring throughout his body, especially his sweat glands. He wasn’t an idiot, he knew his Quirk had at best one explosion left in it right now, but Bakugo also knew how to use it. His route took him all over the room, circling back on his old trails until finally he saw M’gann floating in the air, her back to him. Smirking in victory, he let out one large blast to send him her way, ready to tackle her and pin her to win the match. But before he’d even crossed half the necessary distance, she turned around and grabbed him, immobilizing him mid-air.

[M’GANN M’ORZZ/MISS MARTIAN! NO QUIRKS WITH HER, BECAUSE SHE ISN’T HUMAN! THAT’S RIGHT, ALIENS WALK AMONG US, AND THEY’RE SAVING LIVES AND LOOKING REALLY CUTE! THANKS TO HER ALIEN BIOLOGY, SHE CAN FLY AROUND, READ MINDS, MOVE THINGS WITH HER BRAIN, SHAPESHIFT, AND TURN INTANGIBLE! BUT DON’T FEAR, OUR NEIGHBORS FROM THE NEXT PLANET OVER HAVE A PRETTY BIG WEAKNESS: FIRE! -Present Mic]

Unable to help himself, Bakugo started swearing like a sailor as he was gently lowered to the ground at the same time she was.  _ I’m sorry Bakugo, it was a really good try _ . M’gann’s voice was in his head, and almost without thinking he snapped at her. “I told you not to do that!!” The shout made her flinch, which just made Bakugo angrier. It wasn’t that he hated her or anything, Bakugo just found the idea of her being in his head...uncomfortable. “How’d you know I was there, anyway?” He asked that in a lowered volume, trying his best not to make her think he was more upset than he actually was. Apparently that was an issue he had with people, something Bakugo could only chalk up to other people being freaking morons for not being able to read him better.

M’gann perked up right away, following Bakugo as he started to walk out of the training room. “So, at first I had no clue where you were, but then I reached out with my mind, not that I read it or anything because you told me you don’t want me to do that! But I could still feel it, and that’s how I knew where you were. But if I hadn’t thought of that, you definitely would have gotten me for sure!” The babbling was weirdly familiar to Bakugo, only realizing as they left the building that she was reminding him of damn Deku. Talked like crazy, green, way too concerned for Bakugo...definitely similar.

Ever after Bakugo’s fight with the nerd, he was still trying to actually understand and internalize that Deku was never pitying him, that he had actually just cared about Bakugo and looked up to him. That was why, though it was hard, he was trying not to make the same mistakes with his new partner. As much as she pissed him off sometimes, she was a pretty great choice for a partner with him, even if he didn’t want to admit that. Her telekinesis and flying was a perfect counter to Bakugo’s aggressive style of combat, making sure he couldn’t get close to her easily. Of course, when he did, Bakugo had to be careful with his explosions. It was made clear to him by Eraserhead and Nightwing that if the heat from his explosions was too much, he could actually hospitalize M’gann, or worse. Lower level ones were still okay, and they worked wonders at countering her damn overpowered intangibility, but for the most part he had to rely on his hand-to-hand in close quarters.

All of that meant sparring between the two of them was happening everyday. It gave Bakugo a chance to fight an unusual opponent whose powers made his “hit it hard and fast” approach less viable, and he gave M’gann someone who made her think on her feat and react quickly, something she had issues with. Students from both classes were given free reign to use the Quirk Training Room as much as they wanted during the month to make the best of their time together, but as far as Bakugo could see he and the Martian were the only ones taking real advantage of it. More evidence that they were all complete idiots.

* * *

Class was almost over for the day, and Tara Markov couldn’t be more ready for it. Not that these teachers were worse than the ones back home or anything, but class was still class. Mr. Grayson was back to teaching them for the last period, and she hadn’t been paying attention...until he spoke up and said, “Attention everyone, this is something you’ll actually care about.” Whatever else that could be said about Mr. Grayson, Tara did have to give it to him that he was pretty relaxed and understood how little some of the class cared about regular schooling. Probably because he was so young himself. “Tomorrow is the first of your joint training activities with the UA kids, so your classes will be cancelled from noon onwards.”

That got people muttering, but with no one else speaking up, Tara raised her hand, getting a nod from the teacher. “Mr. Grayson, can you let us know what exactly this activity will be?” She gave the question the works: fluttering eyelashes, the perfect head tilt, an innocuous expression. She was giving him the picture of a curious, if a little vapid, student.

From the friendly smile she got back from him, Tara was sure she’d succeeded. “Great question, Tara. All I can say for now is that it’ll be combat related, and you’ll be working in your teams-” Just as he got the last word out, the bell rang. “Well, looks like that’s all we had time for anyway. Have a good rest of your days, train hard! Get a lot of sleep! Always use protection!” That got a laugh from the class, something Mr. Grayson cared about quite a bit.

Tara had barely gotten out of the classroom when she heard, “Hey Tara!” from behind her in a bright, bubbly voice. Keeping a smile on her face but letting out a sigh internally, Tara turned to see her assigned partner coming up to her, still wearing her school uniform. Well, maybe ‘see’ wasn’t the best word, considering said girl was invisible. “Ready to head out?” Tara nodded, wishing desperately she could say no.

Toru Hagakure had set it up beforehand: that Wednesday afternoon they were hitting the city after school: doing shopping, going to an arcade, dinner at a ramen place, the works. For someone who couldn’t be seen, Hagakure was pretty forceful with her kindness in getting what she wanted. Tara smiled through the whole thing, not letting the girl see for a moment how much she hated every moment. As the sun was setting and they walked back inside the school grounds, Tara could hear in Toru’s voice that she was smiling. “That was so fun! You’re the best partner ever, Tara!”

“No,  **you’re** the best, Toru!” From day one, the girl had insisted to Tara that she should use her first name, that was how quickly she’d imprinted onto her. Then, as they went back to their dorms, Tara feigned shock. ”Oh man, I just realized I left a notebook in my classroom, I should go get it before the classrooms are locked up!” Toru believed the lie hook, line, and sinker, and once Tara saw the uniform without a body heading back to where she was rooming, Tara let the mask drop, a scowl settling on her face.

It hadn’t taken a lot of investigation to find out where out where the school stored the hard copies of its most secret records, namely, in the basement. It was almost like they were begging Tara to break in. Once Tara was outside the main school building, she walked the perimeter until she found an area with bare soil on the ground, and no security she could see. With an effort of her Quirk, Tara opened up the ground beneath her feet and fell into the hole she’d made, then sealed up the entrance behind her, well enough no one could tell it had been disturbed.

[TARA MARKOV/TERRA! HER QUIRK: GEOFORCE! WITH THE ABILITY TO CONTROL THE STUFF THE PLANET’S MADE OF, SHE CAN THROW HUGE BOULDERS AT HER BAD GUYS, FLY AROUND ON A ROCK SHE’S STANDING ON, OR TUNNEL THROUGH DIRT! -Present Mic]

She had to be careful as she slowly moved forward. Not only did she need to open the path up ahead of her as she closed it behind her, while also holding the dirt above her to make sure it didn’t collapse, but she also had to open up small holes every so often, to let in enough air for her to breathe. It took less than ten minutes for her to locate and reach the cement wall barring her entry from the records room. Luckily for her, cement was earth-y enough for her to manipulate, opened the wall up like a door and using some of the dirt, hardened and flattened, as a rock to float on. Without touching the floor, Tara went through the filing cabinets, using her phone to photograph every page. It took a few hours just to do four cabinets worth of documents, but there was no need to rush. After all, she could continue the next night. And the night after that. Using a throw-away email address, she sent the photos to her boss and deleted them, before leaving the room without even a trace that she’d been there. It genuinely made Tara smile to think that not a single moron in her class, or this other school, knew the sweet little blonde girl was a mole for the Legion of Doom.


	5. Interlude 1

In a twist that shocked absolutely no one, Booster Gold was not a patient man. It wasn’t that he was impatient exactly, but sitting and watching something unfold, unable to intervene, wasn’t something he was comfortable with, and yet he was doing just that. Booster Gold was the kind of man who looked at a problem and quickly came up with a solution. If that didn’t work, he’d think of something else when that time came. Some people called him dumb, but Booster preferred to see himself as uncomplicated.

So, what was the illustrious hero of the timestream Booster Gold doing at that very moment? Why, he was looking into the windows of someone’s apartment, eavesdropping on a conversation with the help of his floating robot companion Skeets. The apartment belonged to the young man being chewed out, Kouichi Haimawari, a vigilante going by the name of The Crawler, and the man chewing him out was another licensed hero from America, Christopher Skyline, known by many as Captain Celebrity. “You’re a liability!” the grown man screamed at the young adult. “I can’t keep cleaning up after your messes! If I see you getting in my way again, I’m flying you straight to the police station, got it?!” Before the flinching college student could even start to reply, Skyline walked away and slammed the door behind him as he slept, Booster watching as the pretentious hero flew away in a bad mood.

<Ready to intervene, Booster?> came the robotic voice of Booster’s best pal in the timeline, Skeets. Back when they’d first started working together, after Booster had boosted him along with the rest of his superhero ensemble from the museum he’d been working at, Skeets had been more of an annoyance than a help, but time had forged a bond between them that Booster knew most people didn’t get.

Taking a deep breath, Booster visibly put on his acting face. Inside, he was angry at how Kouichi had been treated, and wanted nothing more than to go inside and comfort the young man. But as simple as that would be, as much as Booster’s heart called at him to do it, he knew it wasn’t the right move. Instead, he put on the usual mask, that of the smug, confident hero without a care in the world, walked over to the front door, and entered without knocking, as he did calling out to the room, “Knuckleduster you old sun of a gun, how are you?!” Then, the gesture a bit over the top, Booster looked around the room in confusion before his eyes settled on Kouichi. “You’re not Knuckleduster.”

The vigilante was not someone who could really be compared to his ‘mentor’. Of average height, build, and looks, Kouichi wasn’t someone who stood out in a crowd at all, with his All-Might hoodie being the only thing that would ever catch someone’s eye. It summed the kid up in a nutshell, really: a boy who wanted nothing more than to be a hero, but was born with a difficult Quirk for that line of work, and who put that energy into whatever he could to feel helpful instead. Booster’s sudden appearance sent the boy from melancholy to confusion. “No, uh, no I’m not. Sorry, sir, but who are you?”

Flashing a grin that Booster had, in his younger years, actually tried to Trademark, he nudged Skeets to play the corresponding video as Booster stood there, looking heroic. <Who is this magnificent hero, you ask? Why it’s Booster Gold! A legendary football star from thousands of years in the future, he came back in time to fight crime, doing everything he can to save your present, and his past!> The spiel was well rehearsed by now, carrying a sardonic edge at the fringes nowadays that it never had when Booster was first starting out.

Realizing he was looking at another professional hero, Kouichi was suddenly looking around his apartment, realizing how messy the place was. It felt good to see someone’s eyes filled with adoration and excitement, rather than disdain and annoyance, but Booster did his best to push those feelings aside. There was something more important than his ego at stake. “No, uh, I’m sorry Mr. Gold, but Master isn’t here right now. Would you like me to leave him a message?”

Shaking his head in a way that made his golden locks bounce, Booster made sure he had a cocky grin on his face as he explained, “No, that won’t be necessary. I’m a time-traveler, remember? I can just jump around a little until I find him.” Then, he snapped his besuited fingers as if he’d just remembered something. “Wait a minute, aren’t you Kouichi Haimawari? The Crawler? Or are you still going by Nice Guy these days?”

If the boy was nervous before, now he looked completely torn between happiness at the recognition and fear at what was going to happen next. “Y-yeah, I’m The Crawler. Why do you ask?”

Doing his best to suddenly look embarrassed himself, Booster asked Skeets, “Pen and paper?” and held out his hand as an autograph book, already full of names of famous heroes from every era, and a Superman-themed pen appeared in his hand. Holding them out to the young man, Booster feigned sheepishness as he asked, “Can you sign this? I don’t have one from you yet, and I’d regret it if I didn’t get one now!”

Kouichi looked at the writing implement and the paper, the only free space on this particular page sandwiched between the autographs of Don Hall and Reed Richards, as if they were would bite him if he reached out his hands. “But, Mr. Gold, why would you want  _ my _ autograph?”

Giving his best nonchalant smile, Booster told the kid, “Please, call me Michael, it’s my actual name. Mr. Gold was my father.” He let out a rumbling laugh at his own joke, which barely made Kouichi’s lips twinge on the edges. Letting out an overdramatic sigh, Booster told him, “Listen, you’re still pretty young, right?” That got him a nod. “Well, I can’t really tell you why you’re famous in my time. It could mess up the timestream. Just...sign this for me, will you?”

Hesitantly, Kouichi took the offered items and signed his name, and the second he was done Booster snatched both from his hand and watched as Skeets teleported them somewhere safe. Stunt or not, that  _ was _ Booster’s autograph book, and he didn’t want to lose all the ones he’d collected so far. Reaching out with one hand, Booster offered a handshake with Kouichi accepted. “It was great meeting you, kid.” Then, just as Booster had turned and was leaving the meager apartment, he stopped and added, “You’ve got a bright future.” His voice was light and happy, but Booster knew it was a deception, and inside he hated himself for needing to say it.

One trip back to the Time Sphere and through the timestream later, Booster and Skeets were back at the Vanishing Point, the hidden refuge at the end of time and space where they worked with their partner in making sure the timeline didn’t rip to shreds. “That was risky,” were the first words out of Rip Hunter’s mouth as they met up inside, the ever-critical time traveler looking at the hero of black and gold with a guarded expression. “You implied to that kid that he was going to become a real hero one day.”

Booster didn’t deny the accusation. Instead, he changed the topic a little. “It wasn’t direct intervention this time. Whoever started this, they talked to Captain Celebrity, and whatever they needled him about got him to rage out on Kouichi. If I hadn’t stepped in, he might have quite being a vigilante too early, before he’d filled his role in history. You and I both know that can’t happen, so I did what I could to keep his head in the game.” It was a poor defense, to be sure, it did nothing to assuage Booster’s conscience for the implied falsehood.

If Rip actually had a problem with the tactic, he didn’t say anything about it. Instead, he walked back over to his chalkboard, once again full of scribblings that made no sense to Booster. “Well, from what my measurements are showing, what you did worked. Rest a little, but we still need to find out who got the ball rolling last time. Maybe a little detective work wouldn’t kill you, Booster.” Letting out annoyed huff, Booster left the room, left Rip to his precious duty to time. He wasn’t doing this because he shared Rip’s crazed desire to keep the timeline consistent. This was all just a prelude to his chance...his chance at saving his best friend.


	6. Chapter 4-Joint Combat Exercise, Round 1

As always, Tenya Iida made sure to arrive at his class ten minutes early, both to ensure that he was on time and to ensure the attendance of the rest of his classmates. As their Class Representative, it was his duty. Of course, as they met in the same monitor-filled control room where they’d watched their mid-term examinations, Tenya knew this was not a regular class period. They’d all just gotten back with lunch, and all were curious as to what they joint-training exercise was going to be. Tenya had spent the week trying to make his team feel connected, and to make sure he understood their individual strengths and weaknesses. Looking at his team, Todoroki, Kirishima, Sato, and Aoyama, Tenya felt confident they would excel at whatever this combat-related training would be.

Not long after the last of Class 1-A had settled into the Observation Room, the stragglers from Titan Academy also arrived, all forty students present and accounted for. Still, their actual teachers were nowhere to be seen.

At least, that’s what Tenya thought, but suddenly Mr. Grayson walked into their field of vision, from a part of the room slightly shadowed. Tenya and his fellow UA students were all shocked, not having seen any hint of his presence, but their American counterparts didn’t share that reaction. Apparently they were quite used to their teacher’s predilection for surprise. The Quirkless hero was smiling, something he seemed to do quite a bit of, in contrast to Tenya’s own instructor. “Hey kids! Ready for something fun?” The Titans students responded right away, some of them murmuring agreement while others shouted out excited exclamations. Realizing that was what the hero was looking for, the UA students did the same.

“Too bad. This isn’t meant to be fun. It’s meant to test your skills as a hero, and for the team leaders, your ability to properly strategize.” The familiarly tired voice of Mr. Aizawa came from the wall of monitors, and suddenly the most center of them broadcast a picture of his face, while the rest were of different angles of the Quirk Training Room. “For your first Joint Training Exercise, you’re going to going head-to-head in battle, team by team, UA against Titans.”

That got a lot of excitement from most of the class, and while Tenya would never interrupt a teacher in that same way, inside, his heart began beating like mad, ready to prove himself and his teammates as worthy of being UA students. Wagging a finger, Mr. Grayson continued the explanation. “It’s not just any exercise though. Think of it as the first round of a single-elimination tournament. UA and Titan teams will be pitted against each other by random selection, and each leader will be given these.” The teacher held up ten laminated cards with two sets of identical backs, halfl of them colored red and orange with the Titans Academy logo, the other half in blue and white with the symbol for UA High School. “They’ll decide the match-ups, blindly putting forward someone, possibly themselves, for each fight. No two members of a team can fight twice in one round, and best two out of three is how the first round will be decided.”

Already, Tenya was boggled at the genius of this course of training. Not only would this be excellent combat experience against those they normally wouldn’t have the opportunity to fight against, but for leaders like himself the tactical aspect would be vital. “As for the fights themselves,” Mr. Aizawa added, “I’ll be supervising those myself from within the room. You’re allowed to use any Quirks or other powers you have, as well as support items,  _ within reason _ . If I think for a second that any of you is about to do permanent damage to your opponent, I will end the fight and declare the aggressor the loser.” Every member of Class 1-A, even Tenya, shivered a little at that. Their teacher had repeatedly made it clear in the year so far just how serious he was about issues like that. “Otherwise, matches end either by surrender or by being rendered unable to fight further.”

That all seemed perfectly reasonable to Tenya. “First up on the docket is...” Mr. Grayson said, making drum-roll sounds with his mouth as he snapped his fingers. Roulette wheels with the team leader’s faces on them spun on two different monitors, only stopping once they’d settled onto the faces of... “Tim Drake and Momo Yaoyarozu! You and your teams should head to the Quirk Training Room, the rest of us will stay here and watch!” Without any further ado, both teams left the room and Tenya waited with everyone else, trying to think through this match-up.

Over the last few days, Tenya hadn’t had much time to learn about Tim Drake, except what Midoriya, as his partner, was able to tell him. The boy was Quirkless, but a skilled fighter with a brilliant mind. Hadn’t Midoriya said something about him being a detective? Perhaps he’d try to guess the strategy Momo would use, and counter it. If done properly, that could be devastating. As for the rest of his team, Tenya supposed he’d have to see them in the match to know their true strengths.

On the other hand, Tenya would like to think he knew Momo quite well. They shared duties as Class Representatives, and several stressful events in the year thus far had forged a friendship between them. She was intelligent, her actions during the Provisional License Exam showed that, but she’d also faced issues with her own indecision in the past. Had she mastered her caution, or would it still rule her? There was also the fact that her team, while not unskilled, was not heavily slanted towards heroes with combat-oriented abilities.

Everyone suddenly started paying closer attention to the monitors as they saw that the teams had met Mr. Aizawa outside the room, ready to choose who went first. Each was handed their hands of cards, and while Tim made his decision quickly as to who would go first, Momo waited several minutes before finally turning in her own answer. “The first fight will be between Garfield Logan and Fumikage Tokoyami,” Mr. Aizawa blandly proclaimed, opening the doors to allow both teams inside, though making sure those not participating in the fight had to sit in constrictive seats set up on the wall near the door, unable to lend their aid.

The interior of the Quirk Training Room was as it usually was, a mixture of flat terrain and large stone plateaus, easily built and torn apart by the school. Each student, like the rest of the classes, were in their hero costumes. This Garfield’s costume was quite simple, a leotard of purple and black that contrasted with his own bright green skin. They stood across the room from each other, at least fifty meters separating them, when Mr. Aizawa gave the signal for the fight to start. “ **Dark Shadow!** ” Tokoyami called, summoning his Quirk and sending it towards his opponent. The lighting of the area was fairly average, but still dim enough to make Dark Shadow dangerous while also being controllable.

The American hero watched this with a wide grin on his face for a few seconds before seeming to disappear, his body blurring for a moment in a way that gave no indication as to where he had gone. Tokoyami looked around the room in confusion while Tenya tried to think through this. What type of Quirk did he have? Remembering that Jiro was partnered with the emerald hero, he looked and saw her whispering to her teammates, Midoriya nodding his head in understanding while watching the footage. “Rough match-up,” he heard Avery say from nearby. “Bird-boy doesn’t stand a chance.”

For a moment, Tenya opened his mouth to retort in defense of his avian-headed classmate, but the words died in his mouth once he, and the rest of the classes, saw what happened next on the television. For the last half a minute, Tokoyami had been itching his neck, while still searching around for his opponent. Then, in another odd blur, something seemed to appear coming off of Tokoyami’s head, growing in size rapidly until a bright green kangaroo was standing right next to him, it’s furry head smirking as it lifted its body onto its tail and slammed its powerful legs into Tokoyami before he had a chance to react.

The teen was knocked through the air from the force of the impact, but Dark Shadow rapidly moved behind him and caught Tokoyami. Garfield didn’t rest in the meantime, however, and had quickly changed form again, this time into a viridian rhino, which charged forward with the full mass and speed of the normal animal. Seeing it coming just in time Dark Shadow tried to block the attack while Tokoyami ran for cover, but the blow sent the shadowy creature recoiling. Without losing any momentum, Garfield shifted again, this time into a lumbering green gorilla, which quickly chased Tokoyami and caught him, grappling him until immobile.

“The fight’s over,” Mr. Aizawa called, staring at Garfield to cancel his Quirk and force him back into his normal human-ish form. “Garfield Logan is the winner, both of you come here and sit down.” Both complied, and while Mr. Aizawa checked them out for injuries, Tenya began to think. His prediction had been correct. Momo had put her best fighter first, hoping to secure an easy victory up-front, but either Tim had seen that coming or he’d purposefully chosen a versatile combatant for security’s sake. One of the monitors was squared on the teams sitting down, and it was clear to all that Momo had taken that loss difficultly, as had Tokoyami, who appeared to be mostly uninjured. Both team leaders were looking through their cards, and this time they turned in their cards at close to the same time.

This time around, Momo had chosen Sero, a smart choice considering the ample room for him to maneuver. The other team’s champion was Victor Stone, the cybernetically enhanced boy with darker skin. This fight took quite a while longer, with Sero staying out-of-sight and on the move with his tape, while it seemed his opponent had long-range attacks, namely some kind of sonic cannon he could transform his arm into. For a while it seemed like Sero had the upper hand, but then Victor revealed he could use his other arm as a grappling hook, which caught Sero by surprise enough to turn the match into a series of struggles of tape against sound. Tenya hoped for a moment that the adhesive material might be able to block up the cyborg’s cannon, but the next blast cleared the obstruction and sent Sero falling off the plateau they were on, though Victor quickly sprinted over and grabbed him with an extended hand.

With that victory under his belt, it seemed Tim had won. “Alright, the match it over,” Mr. Aizawa said to both those in the room with him and those in the Observation room. Looking at the students there with him, he told them, “You can head back to the Observation Room. Meanwhile, the next match-up will be chosen to replace you.” Sure enough, the roulette’s appeared again, this time with one less option on each, and Tenya found himself looking at his own face on one of them.

“Looks like the next match is Tenya Iida versus Avery Ho!” Mr. Grayson called, smiling at both his own students and at Tenya and his team. Taking a deep breath to steady himself, he looked at his assigned partner and they nodded seriously at each other, then took their teams out for the match.

The entire way there, Tenya thought over his options. His team was far more suited to this tournament than Momo’s had been, that was to be sure, but who to send out first? From what he’d seen of Avery so far, she was quite impatient, always in the mood to do things quickly. That implied she’d try to win this quickly, send her best fighter first. If that was the case, sacrificing one of his team who were less likely to succeed for the first match would be wisest. It felt like some sort of underhanded tactic, but he was leading this team, and Tenya knew that this exercise was about forcing them into the difficult decisions they’d need to make in the field, where assigning people to the correct tasks could be the difference between life and death.

That’s why, the second he was handed his cards, he flipped through them, past his own, Todoroki’s, Sato’s, and Kirishima’s, to hand in the card for Aoyama. A pit had formed in his stomach as he gave it to Mr. Aizawa, but he set his jaw to make sure his countenance didn’t betray how he felt inside. To no surprise, he saw that Avery had somehow beaten him to turning in a card herself. Looking at the two cards he’d been handed, Mr. Aizawa pronounced, “Well, this time we’re starting with Avery Ho and Yuga Aoyama.”

They all headed inside, and Tenya sat down to watch what was about to ensue, feeling awful for sending a friend, a teammate, out there against someone he was confident he had no chance of defeating. Aoyama had the makings of a great hero, but he’d seen Avery’s Speed Force firsthand. Avery was wearing the same hero costume she’d worn when they first met, a purple and lavender skin-tight suit with a lightning bolt in yellow on the front, and a domino mask in midnight plum on her face. One second, Aizawa was announcing the beginning of the fight, and in the space between seconds Avery sped through the room, leaving a trail of purple lighting in her wake, and socked Aoyama right in the face, slowing down enough beforehand to just send him flat on his behind and too stunned to fight rather than doing him any serious damage.

The fight was called, even Mr. Aizawa looking surprised at how short it had lasted, and even as she was shaking the arm she’d used to throw the punch, which had clearly hurt her in the process, Avery was grinning ear-to-ear, looking straight at Tenya with pride in her eyes. Once Aoyama had made it back to sit with the rest of the team, pinching his nose to stop it from bleeding, Tenya congratulated him for giving it his best shot, while inside feeling like he’d done his comrade a wrong. Nonetheless, he pulled his next card with a surety that made him hope this hadn’t been for nothing, Avery quickly doing the same after seeming to pause, looking between two cards in particular. Mr. Aizawa looked between them and told everyone who’d be up next to fight. “This will be interesting. Cassandra Wayne will be fighting Shota Todoroki.”

Hearing that name, Tenya sucked in a breath. He was sending in his own best fighter, bar none, this time around, to guarantee a victory. But he hadn’t counted on this match-up. He’d only heard rumors about this girl, who was leaving the seating area to stand opposite Todoroki, clad from head to toe in a black costume that seemed suited to stealth and darkness. This was the son of Endeavor going against the adopted daughter of the Batman. “Begin!” Mr. Aizawa shouted once they were in place, and after taking a deep breath, Todoroki reached out with his left arm and sent out a gout of flame. His opponent dashed out of the way without issue, despite the enormous size of the blast, then began sprinting towards the elemental hero. Stepping with purpose, Todorki began coating the floor with ice, and while Cassandra looked as though she were about to leap through the air at her foe, her feet were suddenly stuck to the ground. Before she could break the grip the ice had on her, Todorki waved his right and and solidified the binds and extended the ice up her body. “Alright, match over, Todoroki wins.”

Happy to have a win under his belt, the first so far for UA against Titans in this exercise, he smiled as he saw Todoroki unfreeze Cassandra before extending a hand, which she shook, the motion looking somewhat awkward. “You’re lucky, Iida,” Avery whispered at him, looking entertained. “If you’d chosen anyone else, the match would be over. Cassandra’s only weakness is long-range Quirks.” 

Unsure whether to take that information as gospel, Tenya looked at his remaining three cards to think on who to send out next. It really came down to either himself or Kirishima, but after some thought he decided to go with trusting his friend for the task of winning the round. Avery’s choice didn’t take nearly as long, having handed in her card shortly after the last match ended. “Alright, last fight of the match is here, and it’s Jaime Reyes and Eijiro Kirishima.” The two students walked out to the battlefield, but Tenya was confused.

Jaime was still dressed in a casual t-shirt and jeans, no hero costume at all. But once the signal to start was given, a metallic armor, bright blue and black contrasting over the surface and giving his eyes a sharp yellow tint, unfolded to cover the teenagers body from head to toe. Then, wings unfolded from the back, and he took to the air. Kirishima, meanwhile was hardening himself, looking up at Jaime expecting an attack. The floating hero, meanwhile seemed to be...talking to himself. “...no, we can’t use that...because it would hurt him...yes, that is actually a problem...” In a way, it reminded Tenya of Midoriya’s own mumbling, but this sounded like Jaime was talking with someone else. A Quirk like Dark Shadow, perhaps, with a second personality? Finally, Jaime nodded. Then, he extended one hand and his arm shifted and changed, the metal moving in a way that somehow looked more organic and unsettling than Victor’s very mechanical change from before.

When it was done, Jaime’s extended hand looked like a radio dish, and while Tenya couldn’t hear anything, Kirishima clutched his head for a few seconds before it looked like his body locked up. “What the heck?!” he shouted, clearly confused. “I can’t move!” Aizawa, looking like he had a better understanding of what had happened than anyone else, appeared more than a little peeved but still signalled that Jaime had won the fight, meaning that Tenya...had lost the match. Both teams assembled in a line and shook hands, and Tenya did his best to try not to feel bitter at his loss. Instead, he tried to focus on the whole point of this exercise: to show them all where they were strong, and where they needed work.

* * *

Most people would think watching their classmates win one match right after the other would be inspiring for M’gann. But while a smile was plastered on her bright green humanoid face, the Martian girl was not feeling very happy at all. This just put more pressure on her to succeed if she got called next, to continue the winning streak. A light probe of her team’s minds told her they were feeling similarly, all of them tense. Except for Tara, of course, because she never seemed to get upset, except when it was directed at M’gann.

A lot of her classmates saw M’gann as a bright, bubbly, cheery girl always ready to help others. That was great! That’s how she liked to be seen, it was the person she wanted to be, more than anything else in the world. At first, leading her own team had been amazing, as she did her best to keep everyone happy and for a while it worked. They’d been so close, but then it all fell apart. Arguments started, friendships frayed, and M’gann’s telepathy proved to be more of a curse than she’d expected. She had found her team distrusting her, all because she’d used it to try and smooth things over, just a little.

Now, M’gann was in charge of three classmates who disliked her to varying extents and Joseph, who was very nice but also of little comfort, as even using telepathy to speak with him the mute boy was shy and had little to say. M’gann was biting her lip thinking about all of it when the roulette wheels, now with only two options each, chose the next match-up, and she gasped as her heart sank. “Well, looks like we’ll be seeing M’gann’s team going against Bakugo’s!” Mr. Grayson told them all.

This was, by far, the worst possible combination. Sure, she and Bakugo had trained a lot, but that was the problem! He was so strong! And smart! He was sure to win against her, especially with such a fractured team. Letting out a sigh, M’gann was just about to leave with her team when she felt a hand on her shoulder. Turning to look, she saw Mr. Grayson standing there, giving her a comforting smile with steel underneath. “You know I trust you, M’gann, but we still need to make absolutely sure this competition is fair. Omen will be supervising your match, to make sure you don’t use any telepathy or telekinesis.”

Blushing at the implication, M’gann quickly turned and sped up to join her teammates as they were leaving. She had hoped they hadn’t noticed, but with an air of innocence Tara asked, “So, what was that about, Megs?” That had been the nickname the shortest member of their team had given M’gann early on, and refused to let go of. When M’gann didn’t answer immediately, her mind racing to think of a way of dodging the worst implications, Tara just continued. “Oh! Did they want to make sure you wouldn’t cheat with your mind powers?”

“...I wouldn’t put it that way...” M’gann muttered, and immediately she could see and feel her teammates react. Tara with glee at being correct, Kole with indignation at not being the first to think of it, Cassie with anger at the idea of winning that way, and Joseph with a quiet assurance that he still had her back. Trying not to think about the fact she was going to be monitored that way,  _ again _ , M’gann tried to think strategy, glancing peeks at the team walking to the Quirk Training Room with them.

In terms of winning a one-on-one fight, M’gann knew she and Cassie were their best weapons, followed closely by Tara, so she knew for sure who she’d be sending in. But in what order? Tara was a good fighter, but she also might just spite M’gann and lose on purpose. Cassie might be the better choice, but she also might be upset that she was sent out first. Her mind was a complicated place that M’gann didn’t completely understand, even more foreign to her than humans normally were. While Cassie took pride in her abilities as a warrior, she was also didn’t want to be defined only as one. It was so complicated!

Feeling a little unsure, M’gann turned in her card soon after getting them, knowing the eyes of her team was on her. Bakugo also turned his in shortly, and after looking at them Mr. Aizawa told everyone, “Well then, it looks like we’re starting off with M’gann and Asui.” That announcement stunned M’gann. She’d put herself forward first to give her team more confidence, to show them that she was going to put herself on the line first, the same way Avery did. She didn’t check their minds to feel their reactions to that action, though, the unknown of what she’d find stopped that idea quickly. But Asui? The cute frog girl? After entering the room, M’gann was so wrapped up in her thoughts she didn’t even notice Bakugo whisper a few clipped words to his chosen champion.

When the fight began, M’gann immediately went to lift her opponent into the air, where the fight could end quickly from immobilization. But just as she gathered the mental force and directed it, M’gann saw Asui wasn’t there anymore. Looking around quickly, M’gann caught a brief glimpse of the girl in the air, mid-hop. Before she could get a better look, Asui was gone again. Floating around the interior of the room, M’gann was trying to look for the Japanese student with her eyes, before giving up and doing the same trick she’d done against Bakugo the day before, scanning the room for other mental awarenesses. She could feel the watching teachers, Mr. Aizawa and Ms. Clay, as well as the waiting teams...but where was Asui? 

Then, a moment too late, M’gann realized she hadn’t looked under where she was floating, and immediately felt Asui’s presence. Looking down, she saw the girl was hopping again, straight at M’gann, feet first. This time around, the blow was quick enough that M’gann had no time to defend herself, getting slammed with the full-force of the jump-kick. She spiraled in the air, only to realize in her pain and confusion that Asui was gripping onto her. The second that became clear, M’gann shut out all other thoughts and focused on the other mind, willing the body it controlled to freeze, which it did. With Asui immobilized around her, M’gann floated down and used telekinesis to move the other girl off of her.

Once it was clear who had won, and the fight was called, M’gann let out a breath in relief and released Asui to freedom. “That was close, ribbit,” Asui said as they walked back, extending a hand with oddly long fingers to be shaked by M’gann. “Are you okay?”

M’gann smiled and assured Asui that she’d be fine, but Mr. Aizawa took time to check her closer. There was no point, not really. Thanks to their shapeshifting abilities, Martians didn’t really get bruises, so while this hurt now, it would fade quickly. While that was happening, M’gann observed Bakugo and Asui talking a little. The team leader was clearly not happy with how that had gone, but he wasn’t yelling at her the way M’gann was expecting him to. Was there something more going on?

Now, for who to go second, M’gann made a tough call. With one win, she couldn’t waste her best fighter in the event she’d lose, leaving third place for the third fight to decide it all. With that in mind, and feeling sure of who the other team would choose, M’gann selected Tara for the second round, something she seemed to appreciate, judging by the smile on her face. Of course, that was counterbalanced by the sour look on Cassie’s, clearly annoyed she wasn’t up yet. “You’re the trump card,” M’gann whispered to her, but that didn’t mollify the demigoddess much.

To M’gann’s confusion, Bakugo hadn’t chosen himself, again. No, instead this time he’d chosen Mina Ashido, the pink-skinned girl who...what was her Quirk? M’gann couldn’t remember for the life of her. Still, the fight started well enough, Tara lifting a platform of sheer rock from the ground as a floating platform, as was her style, before she started flinging boulders ripped from the rocky plateaus at her foe. But as the other girl started running forward, almost looking like she was skating on the ground somehow and leaving a trail of some sort of steam in her wake, she flung something from her hands at the projectile stones, M’gann only remembering at the last minute what it was: acid.

Whatever particular chemical it was, it ate through the rocks as they soared through the air, Ashido dodging whatever was left of them afterwards with ease. Tara seemed to notice the issue with this as well, her eyes widening as Ashido got close enough to start hurling globs of acid at her opponent, the corrosive material hitting their target and began dissolving the place where Tara was standing. Realizing what was happening, Tara jumped ship before the acid could reach her feet, only remembering after jumping to use her Quirk to try and form a new platform to save her.

But she’d been pretty high up, and she was already falling fast. Rocks weren’t going to be good for a soft landing, and it was all Tara had access to. All Tara had managed to cobble together was a rocky ramp towards the ground, but she hit the stone hard anyway, stumbling around before falling to her knees, clearly in pain from the expression on her face. The fight had gone to Ashido, who looked at Tara with sympathy and who she then gave a shoulder to for walking back to the seating area.

That match-up had been awful for Tara, and M’gann suddenly started wondering if Bakugo had planned it. But the calicturn teen wasn’t giving her any facial hints, still looking generically angry, as he often did with the perpetual scowl on his lips. Unable to read his mind to get a hint, M’gann settled for handing in the only card she could, knowing now for sure who Cassie would be fighting. Sure enough, Mr. Aizawa announced to all it would be a battle between her and Bakugo.

Ever since M’gann had considered her team might have even a chance to fight his, she’d wondered if Cassie could take him. M’gann had witnessed Bakugo’s strength, agility, and intelligence in their sparring, and while Cassandra Sandsmark was an exemplary warrior, this boy might be her equal. Cassie started the fight off as expected, rushing in with her magic lasso to try and wrangle her opponent with it. M’gann doubted she’d use the enchanted ability of the item, as serious injuries were off the table, but it was still a great way to get her mobile opponent under control.

While it didn’t look like Bakugo was expecting such an odd choice of weapon, he still managed to get out of the way of the noose by blasting himself to one side, then using his large grenade-styled gauntlets to send out an enormous explosion at Cassie, one that made the foundation of the building shudder. When the smoke cleared, Cassie looked a little singed but was otherwise okay. The more important sight, however, was Bakugo, flying through the air towards her thanks to another, smaller blast of his.

The attack hadn’t knocked Cassie off-guard, and she was prepared to counterattack. But just before she could throw a punch to catch Bakugo mid-air, he fired a small explosion in front of him, just enough to slow his approach and mess up the girl’s timing. Suddenly her fist went through open air, and Bakugo was landing right in front of her, trying to slip behind her and going for a grapple. It almost made M’gann laugh, because as much as it seemed like Bakugo had prepared, he must not have gotten all the info he needed. After all, Cassandra Sandsmark was somewhere around as strong as her mythical half-brother, Herakles.

Cassie no-selled the attempted pin, standing straight and solid as Bakugo was putting his all into moving her, to no effect. Then, almost casually, Cassie grabbed the hand on her arm trying to move it, and threw Bakugo across the full length of the room. Just before Bakugo hit one of the plateau’s, he let out another blast to cancel the momentum and stop himself. Still, even from far away M’gann could see the young hero’s plan, whatever it was, hadn’t worked, and he wasn’t happy about it. Hope swelled in M’gann’s chest, letting herself believe that maybe, just maybe, this match would go to her after all. Cassie looked like she was thinking the same, smiling in triumph as she sprinted towards her opponent to end this.

But they were both underestimating Katsuki Bakugo. With a roar of rage and some epithet M’gann could neither properly hear or understand, he let out another sound-splitting explosion and sent himself rocketing at Cassie. They met in the middle, and Cassie was too cocky, going for style with a wide, sweeping kick that Bakugo ducked under with ease. Once under her, he raised his hands and used his Quirk to create the largest explosion so far, one that sent Cassie flying up into the air and crashing into the ceiling, where one foot looked to be caught in the rock she’d been partially embedded in. Hanging upside-down by one foot, and looking at a steep drop down to the ground, Cassie didn’t look surprised when Mr. Aizawa called the fight and the match, giving the win to Bakugo. It took about half an hour for them to get Cassie down safely and repair all the damage their match had done to the room, during which M’gann felt like a failure, unable to face her team at all. Once again, she’d messed everything up, and they were going to blame her for it. Walking back to the Observation Room, it took everything M’gann had not to start sobbing.

The rest of her team dispersed once back in the room, heading to talk to friends in other teams or their assigned partners from UA. M’gann was so busy feeling sorry for herself, she almost missed Bakugo awkwardly approaching her, so they could stand together and watch the last match on the screens: Virgil going against Midoriya. Virgil was one of the best team leaders, but Bakugo said Midoriya was pretty smart, when he wasn’t insulting him while swearing profusely. The first fight was going to be Grant, who had a similar Quirk to Bakugo, against Uraraka. M’gann was watching the fight go on, still feeling sullen, when someone started talking to her. “You did good.”

For a moment, she almost didn’t believe it was Bakugo who said it, though the words had come out in such a quiet whisper that M’gann had been the only one who could have heard what he’d said. “Thanks,” she replied, her volume just as low and her voice carrying a hint of what she was still feeling. “But I don’t feel like I did. If I’d trusted Cassie to go first, I could have faced you in the third round, and I might have won.”

A sharp bark of clipped laughter was what she got for that observation. “Don’t flatter yourself, I would have mopped the floor with you, Christmas.” The Earth holiday had quickly been chosen as his nickname for her, since she was green and red and so cheerful it made him sick. M’gann liked it.

“Oh really?” she asked, raising an eyebrow. “If I’m remembering right, you’ve still yet to beat me in a sparring match, Bakugo.” Her spirits were starting to raise with the discussion, but a shout of cheer from some of the Class 1-A students shifted M’ann’s focus, as Uraraka sent her opponent floating in the air, helpless and ready to surrender. It reminded her of her own crushing loss, and she let out a weary sigh. “Thanks for trying to cheer me up, Bakugo.”

Those were apparently the worst words she could have said, as a fiery glint entered his eyes and he snarled, “I wasn’t trying to cheer up  _ shit _ . Even when you’re not reading my damn mind, you still think you know what I’m thinking!” Then he stalked away, bringing M’gann’s mood even lower, if that was somehow possible. With nothing else to do, M’gann turned back to the monitors, where Virgil was going electricity versus electricity against Kaminari.

It was a close fight, with Kaminari clearly having stronger firepower to his Quirk, while Virgil had far better control. Just as she was really getting engrossed in it, M’gann felt a hand on her shoulder, and turned to see Ms. Clay, her stoic face warmed with sympathy. “You okay, M’gann?” Then, before she could reply, the teacher led her out of the room, so they were alone in a hallway. “Here, now we can have more privacy.”

Still overwhelmed with everything, M’gann poured out everything. Her issues with her team, her fear at her own ineptitude, the way her powers pushed others away, how she constantly got on Bakugo’s bad side. “I don’t know what I’m supposed to do!” M’gann finished, tears streaming down her face. Martians didn’t normally have tear ducts, but she always made sure to include them when she was shifted into this much more humanoid form.

Ms. Clay had taken it all in without interrupting once, waiting until M’gann was done to offer some advice. “I think we should have regular counseling sessions. It sounds like you have quite a lot to work through.” M’gann must have made a face of some kind, because Ms. Clay quickly added, “That’s normal for people your age. Honestly, most high school students should be getting therapy, regardless of the weight of their particular issues.” That made M’gann feel at least a little better, less like some kind of pitiful freak. “To start with, I think you need to open a better dialogue with your team. Try and clear the air, make sure everyone is comfortable, and address the issues they might have with you. It can be hard, like pulling out your own teeth, but everyone will feel better for it, in the long run.”

It sounded hard, if not impossible, but M’gann thought it was worth giving a sincere try. “And...Bakugo?” she asked, wiping away the last of her tears.

That actually made Ms. Clay laugh a little, a rare sight to be sure. “We’ve been here less than a week, but I can already tell you that you’re not the only one who struggles with that boy. Be patient, and respect his boundaries, even when they don’t make sense to you.” All that said, the two went back into the Observation Room. M’gann got caught up on what she’d missed, namely that Virgil had won his fight by outsmarting his opponent, so with one win each it was down to Midoriya going against Antonia. The rich girl’s plasma constructs at first looked like they’d be a good defence for Midoriya’s quick feet, but she soon found herself out-maneuvered, and M’gann was at least able to take solace in the fact that she wasn’t the only team leader from her class to lose her match.

Once the last teams were rounded back into the Observation Room, Mr. Grayson explained the results. “Great job, everyone! We could really see how hard you all tried, and to the victors go the second round! That won’t be for a while, the Saturday after this upcoming Saturday, and it will have a completely different arena to take place in. Thanks to their wins, next time the two matches will be between Tim Drake and Avery Ho, and between Katsuki Bakugo and Izuku Midoriya.” The second those words left the teacher’s mouth, a wave of students from 1-A sucked in their breath. M’gann guessed it had something to do with their relationship? Whatever it was, Mr. Grayson seemed to think it was funny, but maybe he was just chuckling out of politeness, it was always hard to tell with him. “The rules will also be different, in that it will be four fights per match, with a secret way to dispute ties that we’re not telling you yet. Use that time to train, and even if you’re not taking part in it, train harder anyway!” For a second, it looked like he was going to let them go for the day, when he added, “Oh, and Monday is going to be another Joint Training Exercise, one my students know quite well. You’ll be doing Investigation Simulations!” Most of M’gann’s class let out groans, while their Japanese counterparts just looked confused. Even without using her telepathy M’gann knew Tim was the only one to be excited about this upcoming test. Still, she reflected, she’d probably do better than Bakugo for sure this time.


	7. Chapter 5-Couches and Sushi

“Alright everybody, I think that’s good for today!” Midoriya told his team, all of whom were out on a track field, feeling exhausted but confident. Their team leader had already been training with them from the day they became a team, but after their first joint exercise, he’d become even more focused. Now that he knew more combat was ahead, and that they’d need to do an investigation exercise, he was coaching everyone on what they could work on individually, and what they could try as a team.

But it wasn’t like Midoriya was some drill sergeant. On the contrary, he was always happy to get feedback from his team, and even just a week into the exchange the five of them felt like a much more cohesive unit. Or at least, that’s how Shoji felt. The multi-armed hero was happy that he was working with Midoriya this time around. The powerful hero was as intelligent as he was kind, and it seemed as though he’d noticed Shoji’s desire to be more social, always taking time to check-in with him and ask his opinion.

For training, Shoji had been working mostly for the investigation trial. It wasn’t that he was awful at combat, but since they were doing one-on-one matches, he was going to be less useful there than in other areas. Midoriya had quickly realized how observant Shoji was, easily the best on the team when it came to picking up on sharp details or looking at a scene from multiple angles, so Midoriya had him focus on training his use of growing eyes and other senses, finding the best combinations that worked for quickly scouting.

When Shoji walked off the field, he found his assigned partner, Victor Stone, waiting for him with a smile. The two had planned to chat a bit before heading to bed for the night. So far, Shoji had been pretty happy with his assigned partner. Vic was a pretty low-key guy, so long as one didn’t rile him up with a topic he was more boisterous about. Maybe it was because of his Quirk, but Shoji had never done very well with loud people. “How was practice?” Vic asked him as they started walking towards Shoji’s dorm building.

Growing a mouth to talk with on the arm closer to Vic, Shoji replied, “I don’t think I can tell you too much, what with you being on a rival team.” That got a short chuckle from Vic. “Speaking of the matches, that was a pretty good win you got on Sero.” Shoji wasn’t completely surprised by the way that fight had gone, but it was still a pretty impressive battle to watch.

Vic’s mechanical shoulders twitched in an emulation of a shrug. “It wasn’t anything too special, man. Maybe next time, I’ll get to really let loose.” Then he raised his only eyebrow. “If we’re talking about impressive though, I’ve got to give that Midoriya kid his props. He beat Virgil, and he’s no pushover.” The smallest of smiles touched the edges of Vic’s lips. “He does mumble do himself a lot though.”

Shoji nodded at that, an acknowledgement more than an agreement. “Your team leader’s something else too. He and Momo were the only ones not to fight directly in the matches though. I’ve heard he’s smart, but can he actually handle himself in combat?” The fact that Tim was Quirkless went unsaid, it was the kind of touchy subject Shoji stayed away from.

A scowl settled on Vic’s face in response to that question, and he didn’t say anything to it until they were sitting on a couch together in the dorm building. “Listen, man. I get you don’t mean anything by it, but you really shouldn’t say things like that. If Tim heard it...he’s one of the only Quirkless, Human kids in the class without any powers at all, and he’s doing his best to be a hero anyway. He can fight pretty well, but if I’m being honest, he'd probably lose any direct match-up against someone from Momo’s class.” Then he let out a sigh. “Not because he’s Quirkless though. I’ve seen Mr. Grayson fight, and he’s a beast. And Batman?” Vic shuddered at the mere thought.

More curious than anything else, Shoji found himself asking, “Okay then, so why isn’t he that great in a fight?”

“Your boy Midoriya? He’s a thinker, like Tim. But the difference is, Midoriya seems to be able to think on his feet. He can come up with a plan, run through its faults, then put it into practice without skipping a beat. Tim...just isn’t there yet. He gets in his own head too much, and his reaction time isn’t what it could be. Still, he’s not useless in the field. He just...has room to grow.” It was an interesting insight into the rival team leader, and Shoji was tempted to share it with Midoriya. Though since the two were assigned partners, he probably already knew all of this.

Having taken all that in, Shoji looked around quickly and made note of the fact that they were still alone in the living room area. “Since we’re on more serious topics, can I ask you something?” Once again looking more neutrally stoic, Vic nodded at the question. “Do you ever...have issues with the way you look?” Even after all this time to adjust, the world still had a prejudice against those whose Quirks made them more monstrous. Or at least, it felt that way to Shoji. The question didn’t come with any animosity though. It wasn’t like Shoji knew any way of living, any other experience aside from his own. Still, he was curious.

The cyborg flinched when he heard the question, and was soon looking at the floor. “Do I have issues with it? Or do I think other people do?” The rephrasing struck Shoji as odd, he hadn’t thought of them as separate questions in that way. “Either way, yeah. I’m not...I wasn’t always like you. I grew up normal, top of my class in every sports team I tried and a pretty popular dude. But...life got in the way. I needed most of my body to be replaced, and my Quirk made that easier.”

[VICTOR STONE/CYBORG! HIS QUIRK: PLUG AND PLAY! VIC’S BODY WON’T REJECT ANYTHING TRANSPLANTED INTO IT, AND IT EVEN USES HIS NORMAL ENERGY TO POWER TECHNOLOGY LIKE IT WAS ALWAYS A PART OF HIS BODY! HE’S A ONE-MAN SUPPORT ITEM ARSENAL!]

It was a weird thing to learn, for Shoji to look at this person he saw as so similar to himself, an oddity, and learn that wasn’t always the case. The black teenager’s body was mostly metal, with various parts made of some kind of semi-transparent blue glass to show off a little of the circuits inside him. From what Shoji could tell, only half his head, his neck, and some parts of his arms were organic. Vic’s right eye glowed a bright red, only adding to the very inhuman feel his whole body gave off in waves. “...I’m sorry for assuming,” was all Shoji could think of saying back to him.

In response, Vic gave the first real smile of that day. “Don’t sweat it, Shoji. I know you didn’t mean anything by it. It’s just...before the accident, I thought I saw everyone equally, no matter what they looked like. But now that I’m like this, I know that wasn’t true. There was always a bit of...I don’t know, fear? Revulsion? Any time I saw someone who looked that...different, that’s what I’d feel. Now, I get the feeling every time I look in the mirror.”

* * *

Two hours into the celebration, Jaime was feeling like this was a terrible idea. He and Kirishima, the Japanese student hero he’d been partnered with for the trip, were walking out of a restaurant where they’d had dinner, and Jaime knew for a fact that sushi and his stomach didn’t agree with each other. As he let out a groan, he heard the Scarab make it clear that they weren’t happy either. Well, maybe ‘heard’ wasn’t the best word. Jaime Reyes didn’t really ‘hear’ the alien technology attached to his spine, so much as he just understood in his mind whatever it was they wanted to tell him, without being able to translate it into direct words. Right now, they were of the opinion that Kirishima had poisoned Jaime’s body, and as such should be treated as a mortal enemy. Like most suggestions from the alien intelligence, Jaime ignored it.

The reason for the nighttime celebration was a bit opaque, even to Jaime, but the way Kirishima explained it made it seem like it was equal parts about the first week of the exchange ending and how their fight had gone the day before. “That was so awesome!” Kirishima said, his arm wrapped around Jaime’s neck as they walked down the street, both wearing their casual going-out clothes. “I thought I’d be prepared for anything you could throw at me, but then you went and used that weird sound, and I couldn’t move! Something like that’s going to be super useful once you’re a pro hero, man!”

Jaime had to wince a little at all of that, like he always did when people complimented his battle prowess. “The Scarab deserves more praise than I do,  _ hermano _ . I wouldn’t have any powers if they weren’t wrapped around my bones.” Jaime knew it was a weird thing to complain about. After all, it wasn’t is if anyone deserved special mention for the Quirk they just happened to be born with, the same way he didn’t for being forcibly attached to a piece of xenotech. It was all about how the powers were used. With a yawn, Jaime asked, “So, what’s next?”

He’d hoped the red-haired teen had gotten the implicit hint of wanting to turn in for the night, but Kirishima dashed those dreams when he gave a shark-toothed smile in response. “There’s this karaoke place nearby, I’ll rent us a room for a couple hours!” Unable to bring himself to object to the idea, Jaime followed Kirishima to such a business, and they passed some time singing song after song. Once again, the Scarab made it clear to Jaime this was a waste of their time, there was no point to this, yada yada yada. If anything, hearing them grumble just made Jaime want to enjoy the night a little more. Still, Jaime found himself slumping in his seat as Kirishima belted out some theme song from an animated series from before Quirks were discovered. “What’s got you down?” Kirishima asked, sitting down after his song. For a moment, Jaime was going to protest that there was nothing wrong, but Kirishima cut that option off. “Don’t say ‘It’s nothing.’ My best friend likes to use that excuse, and you can’t stonewall me out of talking about what’s eating you.”

Scowling a little, Jaime let out a huff. “It’s really nothing that important. I’m just...homesick.” With a big sigh, Jaime started to elaborate, ignoring the Scarab as they made it clear this release of intel was unwise. “I’m from El Paso, Texas, and that’s a long way from Titans. Still, I’ve got wings, so I fly in so see my Mom and Dad, my little sister Milagro, and my best friends, Brenda and Paco. But with this trip, it’ll be the longest I’ve ever gone without being able to see them.” The longer the week had gone on, the more the pain of separation hit Jaime.

“I can understand that,” Kirishima said with a nod. “Ever since all of us moved into dorms, that kind of feeling has been way more common. A lot of us do video calls with our folks back home, have you tried something like that?”

In response, Jaime pulled out his cell phone, a model at least a decade old. “I’ve been making due with regular phone calls, but I’ll see if my parents have the stuff for something like that. If not, we can always ago my friend’s Aunt, she’s pretty high-tech savvy.” Of course, she was also the leader of an organized crime operation that employed quite a few villains, but that wasn’t Jaime’s secret to share.

Then, out of nowhere, Kirishime threw out a new question. “I gotta ask, man: why’re you studying to be a hero?” While Jaime was stunned by how out of left field the question was, Kirishima plowed forward. “I mean, some alien bug crawls on your back, you get superpowers, I get that. But why being a hero? You could’ve just gotten it removed, or ignored it.”

[JAIME REYES/BLUE BEETLE III! THIS LATINX DOESN’T HAVE ANY QUIRK, BUT BOY OH BOY DOES HE HAVE POWERS! AFTER AN ALIEN THINGY BORED INTO HIS BACK AND LATCHED ONTO HIS SPINAL CHORD, HE’S BEEN ABLE TO ARMOR UP, AND WITH IT HE’S GOT MORE POWERS THAN I CAN LIST! THE ONLY DOWNSIDE IS THE AI THAT COMES WITH THE ARMOR WON’T LEAVE HIM ALONE, AND IT’S NOT VERY HEROIC!]

The first answer Jaime wanted to give was...a no go. It was the kind of thing he could’ve have being spread around. Instead, he went to his usual answer to that question. Holding up one finger, Jaime began, “Well, one, it’s the right thing to do. I have the ability to help people, and if I didn’t...I’d feel like a bad person.” He could still remember coming home from his first time rescuing people from a natural disaster, a hurricane in Florida, and crying into his father’s arms over the fact he wasn’t able to save everyone, every lost life in the tragedy stabbing into his soul as if he’d killed them himself. Sometimes, Jaime woke up covered in sweat, having just relived pulling someone out of the water with his armored hands only to find life had already left their body entirely.

Raising a second finger, he continued, “And two, it’s a great way to make money, while being a good person. If I do well enough, I can pay off my parent’s mortgage, put Milagro through college, maybe even buy  _ mi abuela _ a better house, where she can feel safer, and where I can visit her more easily.”

He’d thought the explanation would be good enough, Kirishima looking at him with that weird sense of approval that radiated off him when he felt something was sufficiently manly. “Those are great reasons, man. But...what was that first thing that popped into your head? I saw you talk around it.” Damn, Jaime thought. It seemed having an emotional basketcase for a best friend really had given Kirishima a good sense of how people were feeling.

Against the wishes of the Scarab, who was under the impression that the best way to solve this confrontation was to vaporize Kirishima into a pile of ash, Jaime decided to let another person into the growing number who knew the truth. “Okay, but you have to promise me you won’t tell anyone.” Kirishima nodded, smiling with fervent glee. “That includes Bakugo.” Rolling his eyes, Kirishima nodded again, clearly ready to hear what Jaime had to say. “Have you ever heard...of the Reach?”

Thinking it over, Kirishima raised a hand and shook it a little horizontally, in the universal sign of, “Kinda? The name rings a bell, but I don’t know where from.”

That’s what Jaime had been expecting, since Japan seemed to have way less contact with extraterrestials compared to America. “They’re an alien empire, one of the few who went through the proper channels the United Nations set up way back in the day, instead of just invading us. Because of that, they have a lot of good will built up with people, they’re ‘the good kind of alien’.” Jaimed said that last bit with all the sarcasm it deserved. “But they’re not. They made the Scarab, and sent it to Earth thousands of years ago, to activate and bond with a host when they were ready to take our planet, and our people for themselves. It was supposed to completely take me over, and use me as their slave. But the Scarab got messed up from magic a long time ago, so I’m the one in the driver’s seat. The biggest reason I became a hero? So I could stop the Reach, and let other heroes know they can’t be trusted.” Hearing all this, it was clear from his wide-eyes that Kirishima was shocked, but when that faded, he reached and gripped Jaime’s arm tightly. Hope blossoming in his heart, Jaime let himself cling to the idea that maybe, just maybe, he’d just made the struggle a little easier.


	8. Chapter 6-Forests and Phones

It was the first Saturday after the students of Titans Academy had arrived for the cross-cultural exchange program, and despite spending a few hours of each day since then with his assigned partner, Fumikage Tokoyami had found nothing to tie the two together. For their first day off together, he and Mal Duncan had agreed to meet up somewhere on-campus, and decide what to do from there.

The issues with this were numerous. Tokoyami was not as recalcitrant towards conversation as Todoroki or Shoji, but neither was he the type of person who found social interaction a natural instinct. Perhaps that was the single thing the two teenagers had in common: while Mal was an affable person, quick with a smile and a supportive comment, he was rarely one to start talking without being prompted. Now, the two stood outside the Class 1-A dorms neither sure of what to do first. Tokoyami looked at the young hero he’d been assigned to spend time with. He was black, of fairly average height, but build wide and strong and currently wearing a zip-up hoodie with the Titans Academy logo on the front. Beginning to feel awkward, Tokoyami coughed and tried to do something about this himself. “I don’t think you’ve told me, but what is your quirk?”

During the combat exercise from two days before, Mal had been wearing quite the interesting hero costume: a dark blue cloak with a hood that enshadowed his head, and a blue tunic underneath. Not only that, but he’d been carrying a trumpet. The question made Mal’s eyes widen, as he realized the oversight he’d made. “Oh, yeah, sorry about that. I wasn’t trying to hide it or anything it just...doesn’t come up too often." Reaching into the pocket of his hoodie, he pulled the same trumpet out. “I can use this to teleport.”

[MAL DUNCAN/HERALD! HIS QUIRK: AUDIOPORTATION! HE CAN TURN LOUD, HIGH BASS SOUNDS INTO PORTALS TO ANYWHERE HE’S EVER BEEN AND CAN REMEMBER CLEARLY, WITH NO LIMIT ON DISTANCE! TOO BAD THE KID CAN’T ACTUALLY PLAY THE TRUMPET FOR SQUAT!]

That certainly came as a surprise to Tokoyami, who had been expecting Mal to have a more physical, combat oriented Quirk, just based on how he held himself. Still, it was quite the ability. “Can you go anywhere with it?” he found himself asking. “Perhaps our Saturday excursion can be more adventurous than either of us expected.”

A warm smile bloomed on Mal’s face. “Good idea, I think I’ve got just the place.” Then, he brought the instrument to his lips and blew as hard as he could. The sound that came from the trumpet was louder than Tokoyami expected, and from the instrument he saw a circular portal stretch into being. Looking into it, Tokoyami saw what looked like a forest. “You have to go in first,” Mal explained, extending one hand. “It’ll close once I’m through.”

Unable to help his curiosity, Tokoyami tentatively stepped through the hole in space and arrived somewhere where the air was at least ten degrees cooler, and the air tasted of pine. Looking around, he could tell they were at the top of a hill, or the boundary of a valley, on a pathway through a forest of pine trees and other evergreens. Despite it being late morning, the cloudy sky and blanket of trees shaded everything, and Tokoyami could feel Dark Shadow grow stronger, unable to help himself from feeling a little safer and more comfortable in this atmosphere. “A dimly lit paradise,” he muttered to himself.

“I like it too,” Mal said, having come through as well. He took a deep breath, as if he wanted to inhale as much of the scent of this place as he possibly could. “This is Seele Park, in Oregon. Came here with my family three years ago, so if you’re okay with a hike, we can get started.” Tokoyami had no objections, and the two set out on the trail, taking in the scenery around them. Although his Quirk didn’t offer any enhanced senses, Tokoyami could still _ feel _ how full of life this forest was, and relished every chance to see a stray wild animal as it appeared. “Since you asked me about my Quirk, is it okay if I ask you about yours?” Not understanding where this was going, Tokoyami nodded. “I’ve seen Dark Shadow a few times. Is he his own person? Or is he some part of you?”

Without looking at Mal, Tokoyami kept walking as he thought about the question. It wasn’t the first time someone had asked him that question, and he didn’t have a better answer than he had before. He could hear Dark Shadow though, wanting to come out and give his own answer, but Tokoyami decided to hold him back. “I’m not entirely sure.” Remembering the destruction and fear Dark Shadow had caused during the training camp, Tokoyami hoped desperately that Dark Shadow was some entirely separate entity. After all, their personalities had nothing in common. But, what if that was the connection? Was Dark Shadow everything he repressed about himself? “I apologize if you expected a more lengthy answer, but I don’t have one to provide.”

If Mal didn’t care for that answer, he didn’t show it. The two continued to walk through the forest for quite a while, the subject definitively dropped. When the sun had crept out to its zenith, signalling to the world that noon had arrived, Mal spoke once more. “Did you know Titans Academy has a school football team? We’re not allowed to use Quirks while we play, of course, but that doesn’t bother me at all.”

While it had been some time since UA had a formal sports team, it wasn’t a surprise to Tokoyami that Titans Academy did. “Is it something you enjoy?” Tokoyami felt odd asking the question, which felt to him both too personal and trite.

Tokoyami got a nod for a reply. “Yeah,” Mal said, eyes still on the forest. “Do you know Karen?” The name sounded familiar, but Tokoyami didn’t know much about the girl. “She’s on the cheerleading team, easily the best one too. Sometimes, it’s hard for me to focus on the game after watching her perform.” Tokoyami felt he knew where this was going, but Mal didn’t leave room for alternate interpretations. “I want to ask her out, on a date, but I’m afraid she’ll say no.”

One could count the number of times Tokoyami had blushed on one hand, but it seemed this was going to be one of them. He even squawked out a cough before speaking. “I apologize, but I...do not have much experience in romantic matters.” Perhaps ‘no experience’ would be been more accurate. Still he felt honorbound to offer something to Mal for admitting this. “We’re heroes. You, me, and Karen. That involves courage, taking action when others may find themselves frozen by fear. In that context, expressing your feelings could be seen as going beyond.” Tokoyami didn’t say the words ‘PLUS ULTRA’, but he was sure Mal could hear them anyway.

* * *

For the first time in a week, Kole Weathers felt at peace. Here she was, sitting on the bed of Momo Yaoyarozu with the rich heiress herself as well as Toru and Ochaco, idly using her tech skills to illegally improve their phones as best as she could while gossiping. And the Pest wasn’t there to bother her. If Kole ever found out who decided it was a good idea to pair her with Minoru Mineta for this trip, teacher or not, she’d deck them. He was way too interested in the ginger girl’s ripe figure, easily the equal to any of her UA counterparts.

“...and she walked around for more than an hour, with a toilet paper tail!” Kole finished, sharing a good laugh with Toru about it. The other two girls didn’t crack up, but it was clear from their faces they were torn between amusement and second-hand embarrassment. She put the finishing touches on doubling the RAM and storage space of Uraraka’s old, crappy phone and handed it to her. “Who’s next?” All three knew that what she said had two meanings: whose phone was next, and who did they want to hear about next?

Toru happily handed over her cell phone and asked, “Ooh, tell us about Cassandra?” Then, realizing they’d just been talking about Cassie Sandsmark, she clarified, "Like, Cassandra Wayne!”

Just as Kole finished checking out the specs of the phone, which were fairly nice, if pedestrian, she got to work on jailbreaking it while starting her next scoop of gossip. “Well, she was a tough nut to crack, what with her language issues. You all know Batman adopted her, right?” A round of nods (and an assumed nod from Toru) later, Kole continued, “Well, before that happened, her last name was Cain.”

Momo let out a gasp. “Kane? As in the Wayne’s rivals, related to Bruce Wayne through his mother’s side?” It surprised Kole a little to see how up-to-date the Japanese teen was with American rich people, but considering her own social class, she realized it was probably to be expected.

“No, it’s spelled differently, different family,” Kole explained as she pulled off the back of Toru’s phone casing. “Her birth father? David Cain, one of the best assassins in the world. Apparently, he’d set up this whole crazy experiment to create the ‘perfect killer’, having a ton of kids with women with powerful combat Quirks, then raising them all through violence, no language at all. No wonder Cassandra’s such a nutcase.” If Kole noticed the sharp, annoyed looks the other girls were giving her at that last statement, she didn’t show it. “Who else...ooh, want to hear about Raven? Her past is craaaaaazy.”

The three UA students looked at each other, and became clear that Momo was going to be the one speaking up for all of them. “Um, Kole, I think we’ve heard enough, uh, ‘gossip’ about your classmates. Was there anything you’d like to tell us about yourself? Or, if you’d like, we can share a little about ourselves?” Kole went with the last option, and for a few hours she finished up her tech task while taking mental notes about all they’d told her.

Still, they weren’t giving her anything really juicy. It seemed as though they’d found out about her hunger for the scandalous. Oh well. Once she was two phones down, she let them know she had to use the bathroom and bailed, wanting some air. Why was everyone like that? Kole just loved sharing fun stories. Why were people so sensitive about that? This had been the first time she’d gotten to gossip like that in months, ever since she’d burnt all her bridges at her own school.

Suddenly, almost to the bathroom, she heard the sound of sprinting feet, and didn’t even bother turning around, knowing for sure who would soon be trying to tackle her. Before Mineta could touch her though, she used her Quirk, and where there had once been a teenage girl of flesh and blood, there was now a solid crystal statue, identical in appearance to Kole. The grape-headed pervert hit the hard crystal head-first, recoiling in pain. A few seconds later, Kole turned back, and scowled down at the offending student.

[KOLE WEATHERS/KOLE! HER QUIRK: CRYSTALLIZATION! ANYTIME SHE WANTS, KOLE CAN INSTANTLY TURN INTO A CLEAR CRYSTAL THAT’S CLOSE TO INDESTRUCTIBLE! PRETTY COOL, HUH? ONLY PROBLEM: SHE CAN’T MOVE, SEE, OR HEAR WHILE SHE’S DOING IT, AND SHE’S GOT TO PLAN HOW LONG THE FORM WILL HOLD BEFORE TURNING INTO IT! STILL, YOU DON’T WANT TO SEE HER TEAMING UP FOR A FASTBALL SPECIAL!]

“If you try anything like that again, I’m telling Mr. Grayson! I don’t know what your teacher does about your perverted antics, but mine will make you regret being born!” It was a bit of a bluff, as Kole knew corporal punishment wouldn’t be an option, but she wasn’t joking either. If Dick Grayson spoke to the right people, he could make Minoru Mineta’s future career a hell. Turning on a heel, she continued her journey to the bathroom, where hopefully she could take a minute for herself, without having to worry about other people.


	9. Chapter 7-Quiet and Shy

Any of Shoto Todoroki’s classmates would describe him as quiet, reserved even. It wasn’t that he was antisocial, exactly. Ever since the Sports Festival, he’d taken to eating his meals with Midoriya, Iida, and Uraraka rather than alone, as he had before. The last few months had involved building stronger bonds with many of his classmates, something he was starting to realize more and more was a skill that would prove useful as a pro hero. Still, he was always one to listen, rather than talk, and he preferred spending at least a good part of his day on his own.

But as the first week of the interschool exchange program ended, Shoto was beginning to see that even he could be called social, in comparison to others, and quiet had its limits. He was spending the Sunday in the dorm common room, alternating between studying and reading for pleasure. His assigned partner, on the other hand, was just watching him. Silently.

Of course, Shoto knew he couldn’t really blame Cassandra Wayne for that last part. He’d been pulled over by Mr. Grayson the first day to have a private talk about Cassandra. Her Quirk was what allowed her to be the best hand-to-hand fighter in Titans history, but it was also the reason why her communication skills were so difficult. He didn’t know the whole story, but apparently the language center of her brain was trained on body language, and learning any other languages is incredibly difficult for her.

So for the last week, she’d mostly just watched him as they spent time together, which was whenever she wasn’t spending time with her best friend, Stephanie Brown. Well, that and training. Since Shoto had won their fight, she’d been spending a lot of time training as well. Whether she was upset with the loss or it was just normal for her, Shoto didn’t really know. Reading other people was already hard for him, so someone who didn’t spend a lot of time talking was basically an enigma to him.

He looked over at her, pulling his attention away from the physics textbook he’d been studying. As it was a casual sort of day, she was wearing a WayneTech t-shirt, probably given to her by her adoptive father, and a pair of shorts. Her short black hair framed her face well, and Shoto couldn’t help thinking how, well, normal she looked like this. Put her in a school uniform, and she could walk down the streets of the city without drawing an eye. But there was something else to her as well. The way she looked at him, held herself...it was like she was an outside observer, someone behind a wall of glass looking at something particularly interesting.

Then, Shoto saw something he hadn’t noticed before: a scar on her arm, almost hidden by the short sleeves of her t-shirt. It was an oblong shape, raised and puckered. She saw him see it, and tilted her head, a sign from her that she was curious about what he was looking at. Feeling a little awkward, Shoto pointed to the same spot on his own arm and asked, “This scar, where did you get it?” He’d been told that, even if she didn’t really understand the words he was saying, it was a good idea to verbalize to her anyway. It was good for her to get the input, and when people spoke their body language tended to tell her what they meant anyway.

[CASSANDRA WAYNE/ORPHAN! HER QUIRK: BODY LANGUAGE! SHE CAN READ PEOPLE’S BODY LANGUAGE LIKE I READ A BOOK! IN EVERYDAY LIFE THAT MEANS SHE CAN ALMOST READ MINDS, BUT IN A FIGHT IT MEANS SHE KNOWS HER OPPONENT’S NEXT MOVES, WHERE THEY’RE WEAK, AND WHERE THEY’RE STRONG! TOO BAD IT MEANS LEARNING ANY NORMAL LANGUAGE, INCLUDING SIGN LANGUAGE, IS HARDER THAN KIRISHIMA’S ABS!]

It seemed like what he’d heard was correct, because she considered the scar for a few seconds before looking at Shoto and miming a gun firing with one hand. Shoto’s stomach twisted, feeling suddenly squeamish at the thought of being shot, especially if it had been long enough ago to be scarred. But who had shot her? The question must have shown, and with no way to mime the answer, Cassandra told him, “Father, training,” her voice almost raspy with disuse. Hearing that made the bottom fall out of Shoto’s stomach. His father was terrible, but he’d never done anything like that to him. Then, she pointed at Shoto’s discolored skin, around his eye. “Who?”

It was something Shoto didn’t talk about, ever. But, he had to consider the fact that Cassandra has just shared something that must have been traumatic for her. Looking around to double check they were alone, he told her, his voice low, “My...mother. She poured boiling water on my face, when I was young.” Shoto felt like a monster for even saying that, and had to immediately follow it with, “It wasn’t her fault! My father...he’d taken a toll on both of us, and it broke her. She’s still trying to get better, I don’t...I try not to hold it against her.” To his surprise, Cassandra reached out with a calloused hand to touch his own, a clear attempt at comfort, her black eyes on his blue ones. Unsure how much it would translate to body language, he hesitantly told her, “I’m going to see her in the hospital in a few weeks. If you’d like...you can come with me.” She nodded her head, and unsure of how to feel about any of this, Shoto went back to studying.

* * *

Sometimes, Karen Beecher considered the idea that she’d done something to piss off a deity. If this had been a few years earlier, she wouldn’t have entertained the notion, but it was harder to be an out-and-out atheist these days with when she had a classmate who was the product of a union between a god and a human. Not just any god either, but Zeus. From what little she knew of Greek Mythology, it shouldn’t have really been surprising, considering just how many mythical heroes were his offspring.

But back to the cursed by fate thing. First, she’d been put on a team, not as a leader, but having to work under an underachiever who she felt was holding her and everyone else back from their true potential. Then, she went and got a crush on a big dopey doofus who seemed completely ignorant to the fact that she wanted to go out with him. And to top it all off, she’d been teamed up with a mute.

Well, that wasn’t entirely accurate. Koji Koda wasn’t really quiet because he had no choice, it was more due to his crippling shyness. The weird looking guy wasn’t the worst partner she could have been saddled with, Karen supposed, but she still couldn’t resist the urge to whip him into shape. Which is why, on their day off, she and he were together in a training room, after she’d taken the time to gather some animals he had a harder time using his Quirk on. Mostly bugs. She wanted him to train his Quirk more, so he could use it over a larger distance and on more targets at once. After all, it was a pretty useful Quirk, and if there was one thing Karen hated, it was untapped potential. “Try it again!” she shouted at him, annoyed at how boots-shakingly terrified he was of the tiny animals, even from half a room away.

“G-go away!” he tried yelling at them, but it wasn’t working, the centipedes and millipedes she’d collected stayed where they were. Then he tried shouting a few more things, but they still refused to obey. Karen was frustrated, why wasn’t this working? It would be easier if she could just talk back and forth with the guy, but he usually could only talk to animals, and hadn’t said more than two words to her directly over the last week. Then, inspiration struck, and Karen activated her Quirk, her training clothes shrinking with her body.

[KAREN BEECHER/BUMBLEBEE! HER QUIRK: BEESHIFTING! SHE CAN SHRINK HER BODY TO SIX INCHES TALL, AND WHILE SHE’S THAT SMALL SHE’S ABLE TO FLY WITH HER BUG WINGS AND SHOOT PAINFUL STINGER BLASTS FROM HER HANDS!]

Once she was in her smaller form, Karen flew across the room until she was hovering near Koda’s face, and surprised him by shouting, “Hey, Koda!” Startled, he turned to see her. Her hero costume was black and yellow striped, for her bee aesthetic, and she made sure to wear her long, curly dark hair in buns to keep it out of the way while flying and fighting. “What’s the issue, man? Why are these bugs so hard for you to talk to? If you could work with them, they’d be one of the most useful allies in the field!”

He looked like he knew that, then, to her surprise, he actually replied to her. “They’re just...so scary!” The teen hero was actually shivering with fear as he spoke, his eyes locked on the bugs. “I can talk to all animals, and I love most of them! But bugs...they just terrify me. With their skeletons outside their bodies, and all those legs...” Karen didn’t really get it, but she was happy to see her guess was correct: when she was beeshifted, he was able to talk to her. Probably because he thought she was less intimidating this way, but that was out of ignorance. After all, he hadn’t had the misfortune to be stung by her yet.

Rubbing her nose with one hand, Karen tried to think of how to help him get past this. “Listen, Koda, try...try pretending they’re not bugs. Picture that you’re talking to mice or something instead.” Karen could not understand how anyone would think that bugs were worse than mice, but different strokes for different folks, she supposed. He took the advice to heart though, and after closing his eyes and trying a few times, he was better able to use his Quirk on the creepy crawlies. It made Karen smile, seeing someone push through their limits like that. It was what she considered the most important part of being a hero. Which was why Virgil was such an infuriating team leader, no matter the results he got the team. But that was an argument to rehash with him later. For now, she wanted to congratulate Koda on the progress...before she pushed him to do better the next day, anyway.


	10. Interlude 2

@NobodyThatsWho: Hey

@NobodyThatsWho: Hello

@NobodyThatsWho: Is this thing on?

@NobodyThatsWho: I just flew in from the New York, and boy are my arms tired.

@Gentle: Yes?

@NobodyThatsWho: Ah, finally!

@NobodyThatsWho: Is this the Twitter account for the villain Gentle?

@Gentle: ...

@Gentle: Are you with the police?

@NobodyThatsWho: Look at my profile. My retweets. My likes.

@NobodyThatsWho: IS THIS THE TWITTER ACCOUNT OF A FASCIST?

@Gentle: My apologies, I had no intention to offend. This is indeed Gentle. Who am I speaking with?

@NobodyThatsWho: Did you not look at my account? I’m Mr. Nobody!

@Gentle: Who?

@NobodyThatsWho: ...

@NobodyThatsWho: ...

@NobodyThatsWho: I’m the Doom Patrol’s archnemesis.

@Gentle: Who are they?

@NobodyThatsWho: They’re the superhero team with Robotman on it.

@Gentle: My apologies, I’ve never heard of them before. I live in Japan, you see.

@NobodyThatsWho: I once stole Paris! By feeding it to a painting!

@Gentle: Was there a reason you’re contacting me?

@NobodyThatsWho: Listen, Gentle, I’ve seen your videos. You’ve got style, you love the limelight, and you are weird as heck. That Quirk? Silly. Love it.

@NobodyThatsWho: I’m putting together a new villain team, a new Brotherhood of Dada.

@NobodyThatsWho: I just wanted to extend an invitation, see if you’re up for joining up.

@NobodyThatsWho: It comes with no benefits except what we can get through ridiculous and reality-bending schemes.

@NobodyThatsWho: I’m working on this great stuff called $#!+, it’s going to be great.

@Gentle: What are your goals?

@NobodyThatsWho: Goals?

@NobodyThatsWho: Goals?

@NobodyThatsWho: I’m Mr. Nobody.

@NobodyThatsWho: My ‘goal’ is to show everyone who thinks there’s a normal.

@NobodyThatsWho: Who thinks that there’s an average.

@NobodyThatsWho: Who thinks that there’s a reality.

@NobodyThatsWho: Show them all the truth.

@NobodyThatsWho: They’re nothing.

@NobodyThatsWho: You’re nothing.

@NobodyThatsWho: I’m nothing. I’m Nobody. We all are.

@Gentle: I appreciate the invitation, but I don’t think I can really relocate. I wish you the best of luck with...whatever it is you’re doing.

@NobodyThatsWho: Oh

@NobodyThatsWho: I see how it is

@NobodyThatsWho: Well, screw you ‘Gentle’

@NobodyThatsWho: That’s the worst villain name I’ve ever heard

@NobodyThatsWho: Even Kite Man is laughing at you

@Gentle: Well, that’s uncalled for.

@NobodyThatsWho: No, YOU’RE uncalled for

@NobodyThatsWho: In fact, you know what?

@NobodyThatsWho: Screw doing a new Brotherhood of Dada

@NobodyThatsWho: Didn’t really work the first two times

@NobodyThatsWho: Instead, doing a Brotherhood of Nada

@NobodyThatsWho: Which you’re not invited to

@NobodyThatsWho: I hope you step on a lego

User @NobodyThatsWho has blocked you.


	11. Chapter 8-Joint Investigation Exercise

On the day of the second training exercise, Avery Ho was the first awake, and she made sure that her team was the first to the classroom they’d been told to meet up at. They were all glaring at her with varying levels of annoyance at being awake on a Monday at 6am, but Avery couldn’t do more than give them a vague apology. She was practically vibrating on the spot, excited for them to be the first to complete the next test.

It was crazy to think it had already been a week since they’d all arrived in Japan. Avery had been having a pretty great time, and fresh off her win in the Combat test, she wanted to kick ass in the investigation as well. After all, she and her classmates had done tons of these exact kind of simulations, while the UA students had next to no practice with investigating, from what she could tell. Another thing to lord over Iida once she’d gotten a better score than him.

Over the next hour, the other teams from both schools and their homeroom teachers, as well as Ms. Clay, had all assembled in the assigned empty classroom. Sitting on one end was what Avery had expected. It was a set of five cylindrical chambers, just large enough to hold a person, the inside covered in cushioning and with restraints put into the walls. On one end, there was a chair with a headset hanging above it, and all of it was connected to a portable supercomputer. The last piece of the set-up was the monitor, large enough for everyone in the class to get a good view on what happened.

All the Japanese kids in the class were looking at this set-up like it was something crazy, but Avery and her fellow Titans were well acquainted with the device. Luckily, Mr. Grayson stepped forward and cleared his throat, ready to explain. “Morning, everyone! Today is your second Joint Training Exercise, and this time you’ll be focusing on Investigation. Now, I’m aware that UA spends a lot less time on the subject compared to Titans Academy, and that’s part of why we do this exchange.” Then, he paused, and Avery noticed he was looking at Iida, focused and alert, with his hand raised. “Yes, Iida?”

With accompanying hand motions, Iida began to speak. “Excuse me, but I have a question! As Professional Heroes, are investigative skills going to be required? After all, the police department will be handling that aspect of criminal justice, will they not?” There was a lot of murmurs of agreement from UA students at his words.

Their own teacher, Mr. Aizawa, took the floor to answer the question. “You are correct that, in comparison to American heroes, we do leave more of the investigation aspects of a case to the police department. We work hand-in-hand with the police, while in America they largely leave Quirk-based crimes to heroes. That said, I can testify from personal experience that knowing how to read a situation and do your own investigative work can mean the difference between the life and death of innocent civilians.” The teacher said all this with the same cold, detached tone Avery normally heard him use, and it made even her nerves of steel bend, as she shivered a little in her seat.

“Thanks for that explanation, Eraserhead,” Mr. Grayson said with one of his charming, easy smiles. “Now, you might be wondering how we can practice or test your investigation skills, right? I mean, I enjoy a game of Clue as much as the next guy, but it’s not really real-world experience.” There were a few chuckles at that, but only a few. Unperturbed, Mr. Grayson turned to the large machine. “That’s why Justice League telepaths developed this baby here. Anyone with any kind of telepathic abilities can use it to create a sort of controlled shared dream for the people in the tubes. We use it to put you all in developed, based in the real world, situations and see how you all do!” Then his eyes met Avery’s. “Since they were so early, why don’t we let Team Hard and Fast show you all how it works!”

From there, Avery and her team patiently went through all the necessary steps a lot slower than usual, so the whole class could see and understand them. Getting strapped in, Ms. Clay getting set up with her headset, them getting sealed in, then anesthetized, and then...

Suddenly, Team Hard and Fast were all in a hero agency building, their own personal hero team room at the school, and they were in their hero uniforms. There was a file on the table, and Avery quickly picked it up to read through it and explain the situation. It was weird, how easily and seamlessly their consciousnesses transferred from the real world to the dream one. It was similar to the transitions in dreams, how the setting can shift and change without the dreamer ever really noticing.

“Alright team, it seems the Legion of Doom have hidden high-yield explosive devices somewhere here in Coast City, but we don’t know where, just that they look like this.” She held up a photo from inside the file, showing a device that looked like a bright red briefcase, but covered in weird super science gizmos. Stephanie looked like she was about to suggest something, but Avery cut her off. “Well, I got this one.” Then Avery gathered the Speed Force inside her body and zipped away.

When she was moving max speed, it was like time slowed down for her, allowing her to run through every building in the city, one by one, until she found the device. She found the darn thing in an abandoned building after less than a minute, which felt like about an hour in her relative time, then carried it with her to the team. “Got it! Investigation done, get us out of here!” With that, they were all brought back into reality and released from their chambers. Avery was feeling chipper about the record-time finish, but Mr. Aizawa was glaring at her, and even Mr. Grayson looked pretty annoyed.

“Congratulations on the quick finish. You just committed over a hundred counts of breaking and entering, considering you didn’t get a warrant before searching those people’s homes,” the sleep-deprived teacher told her, clearly unhappy. “Speed is not everything, Ms. Ho. As heroes, we expect you to carry out tasks effectively and responsibly, not rashly.”

Avery wanted to reply that is was a stupid simulation so that shouldn’t count, anger and shame burning in her heart, but her own teacher started on her next. “Avery, you need to think about your teammates.” Looking over at them, she saw they were all looking upset as well. “Stephanie has amazing skills with technology, and Jaime’s xenotech could have helped as well. You’re their leader, and you need to remember to take into account what they can do, instead of trying to do everything yourself.” Then, he let out a long-suffering sigh and finished, “Head back to your seats, you’ll get a full analysis of your simulation results in a few days.”

* * *

“Everyone’s in place, Midoriya. Should we send in Kaminari?” the message came, relayed from Uraraka to Jiro. She and Izuku were standing at the front door of a bank, where a villain and his crew had about twelve civilians and employees as hostages. Well, they were technically all just simulated people made by Ms. Clay, but that didn’t matter. Izuku’s mind had been racing since they were informed about the situation in the dream world, and instead of rushing in, he took his time.

He’d looked up the floorplan of the bank, which turned out to have an exit on the ceiling. He’d looked up the information they had on the villain, the Rainbow Raider. He was the eighth villain to take the name, and his Quirk allowed him to make rainbow bridges that he and allies could use to escape on. Clearly, he was hoping to use the rooftop exit, and would likely have one of his estimated six henchman stationed there.

Once they’d arrived at the bank, Izuku had told everyone the plan, and they worked on getting it ready together. Uraraka used her Quirk to send herself, Shoji, and Kaminari up to the roof, while Deku stayed outside the front entrance, and Jiro used her earjacks to listen to what happened inside the building and what was said on top of the roof by plugging into a wall. There were no criminals on the roof itself, so it was Shoji’s turn. He used his tentacle arms to send an eye down a roof pipe, and from there he could see inside the second story hallway. There were three criminals there, guarding the door.

All of them, like their villain leader, were armed with pistols. This would be dangerous...but they were heroes. And Izuku had a plan. “Send Uraraka the sound signal, it’s time to start.” He’d been working with his team in the last week, training to figure out how everyone’s Quirks worked, and finding new applications where he could. Jiro’s earphone jacks could not only be used for surveillance, they could transmit small sounds to specific area when needed.

Suddenly, there was the sound of breaking glass, and Izuku knew the next part of the plan had started. Uraraka had made Kaminari weightless, which he had then used to descend slowly to the second story window and smash in, sending electricity flying in every direction, knocking out all the guards. Sadly, he was too zapped afterwards to open the door for everyone else, so Uraraka would have to float down herself and Shoji next, then tap out a signal on a wall. The henchmen were out cold, and securely handcuffed. They could hear the villain inside too, about to send more people upstairs to check on the noise.

That was what Izuku was waiting for. Now, the villain’s forces were weakened, distracted, and about to become divided. Once he sent up another signal, that more henchmen were on the way, Izuku had to believe that Uraraka and Shoji could take them out themselves. Just when the time was right, and he hoped the villain’s focus was off of the hostages, he let One for All flow through his body, Full Cowl mode, and kicked the door down with his enhanced strength. Giving his best smile, without doing a full All Might facial impression, Izuku yelled, “Everyone stay calm!” before barreling towards the villain, who was wearing a coat that looked like a rainbow had thrown up on it.

Both the villain and his remaining henchman tried to aim their guns at Izuku, but he was too fast for them, easily able to knock the guns out of their hands and handcuff them before either could stop him. That done, he and Jiro started escorting the hostages outside, and before too long Uraraka and her squad met up with them, bound henchman under control. The simulation ended once all the hostages were safe and the criminals given to the police.

Suddenly, Izuku was back in the confined tube, being taken out by Mr. Aizawa, who looked more bored than anything else. Still feeling the high of the adrenaline that had been flooding his body, Izuku shakily walked over to his seat, but with a smile on his face. The rest of his team looked happy with how they did as well. “Excuse me,” came the nasally voice of Mineta, breaking Izuku out of his mental review of the simulation. “That wasn’t an investigation! It was, like, a regular hero mission!”

As was a usual sight in their class, Mr. Aizawa looked at Mineta with great displeasure. “What Midoriya’s team just went through was actually one of the most common types of investigations for Japanese heroes: he was given a situation, had to gather information, and put together a plan under a tight timeline, with lives on the line. He did adequately as well, though he will be getting feedback on areas to improve in his detailed report.”

Izuku was amazed, as for Mr. Aizawa that was high praise. Pride was welling up inside him, for his team and for himself. Most of the teams for Titans did well, but of the fellow UA teams, only Bakugo’s team got anything resembling praise from the teachers. While his solution for finding a villain’s hideout had been destructive, it also followed the letter of the law and achieved success quickly. Momo and her team had been captured by their villains, and Iida had run out of time in his simulation. The last team to use the simulation was Tim’s, the New Teen Titans. They were facing a villain serial killer, and Izuku watched, attention rapt. He could see why Tim had a reputation for being a great detective: he was able to quickly get the information he needed, lure the killer into a trap, and capture him with no damage to anyone on the team. Once the class was dismissed, Izuku spent the rest of the day talking about investigation with Tim, wanting to perfect this skill. As the next holder of One for All, as the future Symbol of Peace, it was another area he needed to work on.


	12. Chapter 9-Loneliness and Wisdom

On the walk from English class to the lunchroom, Kyoka Jiro stretched with a yawn. While he wasn’t as bad as Bakugo based on what Toru had told her, Midoriya was still pushing his team to their limits with after-class training. It wasn’t like Kyoka disagreed with the idea, they could all use more work, and Midoriya was really great at finding exactly what they all could work on improving. Plus, their strength as a team was getting better as well. Hell, just look at how they’d done in the Investigation test. They hadn’t gotten the detailed results yet, but the whole team walked away feeling pretty satisfied.

But, all of that said, it still left Kyoka’s body more than a little sore. Luckily, they’d managed to convince Midoriya to give them that particular afternoon off as a reward for their success. Toru had managed the same with Bakugo, somehow, so they were going to have a girl’s night out on the town together. It might actually be her first night without hanging out with...wait, what was the buzzing sound?

Sure enough, what might have seemed like a normal fly was proven not to be, as closer examination showed it was a bright green. “Hey, what’s the bzzzz, Jiro?” The pun made her groan, and in seconds the fly had shifted into the familiar face of Garfield Logan, Kyoka’s assigned partner. The young hero was social, and Kyoka hadn’t necessary disliked spending so much time with him. His jokes were bad, but he had also proved to be kind and always have an ear open for others. “Okay if I join you for lunch?”

Kyoka shrugged, and together they walked towards the lunch room. “Wait, isn’t your class’s lunch at a different time? Shouldn’t you be in class right now?” she asked him. Sure, Kyoka was a big fan of punk aesthetic, but missing class wasn’t the best idea in her book. What was the point in getting into UA or Titans if they were just going to flunk out?

The green teen made a raspberry sound with his mouth. “It’s just Bio. I basically tested out of it already.” Then, mid-stride, he turned into a green horse and continued talking. “I mean, I’m the whole animal kingdom. Who knows more about Biology than me?” Then he shifted back into his normal form, with messy dark green hair, pointed elvin ears, and sharper canines than the average person, his whole body gangly while still having a bit of athletic muscle. “So, what did you want to do tonight?”

[GARFIELD LOGAN/CHANGELING! HIS QUIRK: ZOOSHIFTING! THIS TEEN HERO’S BEEN IN THE BIZ LONGER THAN SOME PROS, HAVING BEEN ADOPTED BY THE DOOM PATROL AT A YOUNG AGE! NOT ONLY CAN HE TURN INTO ANY ANIMAL, EVEN ALIEN ONES, BUT HE CAN STILL TALK AS AN ANIMAL! TOO BAD HE’S STILL GREEN EVERY TIME!]

Flinching a little at his words, Kyoka tried to find the most diplomatic way to say what she needed to. “Sorry Gar, but I’ve got solo plans. Me and Toru are going to hang out tonight.” She saw something flicker in his expression. His toothy smile didn’t go away, but the emotion under it felt like it had changed. “I mean, we’ve kind of spent every day together since you got here. I’ll still be back tomorrow, y’know?”

He nodded, the motion so energetic that Kyoka almost believed the positivity he was trying to radiate. “Yeah, I get that. I’ll just go chill with Vic.” That sounded good to Kyoka, and from there they had a good time having lunch together. She did like Garfield, he was like if Kaminari had any sense of personal skills, so she decided to try and hope that he was being sincere. After all, they were heroes in training, he should be able to handle a night without her.

After class, she and Toru headed to their dorm to get ready, and once they’d gotten dressed up they started to head out on the town. But it was colder than they’d expected, and while Toru had brought a jacket, Kyoka was going to freeze without another layer. Toru ended up waiting near the school gate, while Kyoka ran back to her dorm to get something warm to wear. She’d grabbed the jacket and was on her way back when she heard someone talking around the corner of a building, someone with a familiar voice.

“...yeah, I totally get that Tim, I know you and Steph haven’t gotten to see each other much, I’ll be fine.” That was definitely Gar’s voice, and Kyoka peeked her head to see him on his phone, his warm breath coming out misty in the cold air. “Yeah, uh, no Vic’s busy too, video calling family. Star’s out with her new friend, and Raven’s in the mood for being by herself. But I’ll be good, see you later!” That last sentence had come out in a rush, like Gar had wanted to cut off the other person from saying something.

Kyoka knew she should be going back to Toru, but she couldn’t help but continue watching as he dialed another number and brought the phone up to his ear again. “Hey, Rita, it’s me. Yeah, I miss you guys too. Japan’s pretty great, I’ve made a lot of friends. I got assigned a partner, for safety and stuff, her name’s Jiro. She’s pretty punk rock, I think Jane would love her...no, nothing’s wrong, I just felt like calling. Y-yeah, I know it’s been a while. How’s...oh, you have to go? That’s fine, I know the Brotherhood of Evil’s been more active lately. If you ever want to take Danny to come stop by, it would be...yeah, love you too Rita.”

Just for a few seconds, as Gar was desperately trying to keep someone on the phone with him, Kyoka felt like she saw a bit of him that explained a lot. The dude was lonely, it was like he  _ needed _ to not be alone. Once she’d thought about that for a few seconds, Kyoka took a deep breath and did the only thing she could. “Hey, Gar!” That could his attention, just as a few tears had started to slide down his colorful face. “Want to hang out with Toru and I tonight?”

* * *

The last week being partnered to Mina Ashido had been...interesting. Cassandra Sandsmark, Cassie to her friends, liked to see herself as a fairly normal girl. Sure, she was training to become a pro hero, and she could be a little competitive, but there was always something appealing to her, about being something like normal. Mina was a good compliment to that. The pink hero was all overreactions and energy, and it let Cassie naturally fall into the Straight Man archetype, something she always enjoyed.

That particular night, Cassie was hanging out in Mina’s room, letting her paint all of her finger and toenails pink. It wasn’t something Cassie was normally interested in, but Mina had been really excited to try it out, and Cassie couldn’t bring herself to say no. They were all the way done with both hands and halfway through the first foot when there was a sudden tapping on the room’s doom. Confused, Mina set the nail paint aside and walked over to open it up, only to find a small owl standing on the carpeted floor.

The second the door was open, the owl just trotted in, right up to Cassie. She knew instantly what this mean, and her temper flared. “Tell her no!” she spat at the thing, quickly. “Not now! I just want a few days to myse-”

Cassie wasn’t even able to finish the sentence, when suddenly Mina and Cassie were no longer the only two people in the room. Suddenly, a third woman was there with them. Despite being just over six feet tall, she gave off a presence, a light, that made her seem far more enormous than that. She was curvy, but with enough muscles showing through her business suit to make it clear she was not one to cross lightly. The entire ensemble fit her perfectly, all of it in shades of grey, with the exception of a sky-blue necktie. Her auburn hair contrasted with her olive complexion, and the wavy locks were assembled into the most complicated braid any mortal would ever see. There was also a resemblance between her and Cassie, enough that most people would know immediately that the two were related. The owl flew up to land on her jacketed shoulder, and the woman looked at Cassie with a stern expression. “What was it you wanted to tell me, sister dear?”

If Cassie was at all put out by her sister’s displeasure, it didn’t show. She rose from the bed, and though she was almost a full foot shorter, she still did her best to look her sister in the eye. “I’m trying to spend time on my own, make some friends! It’s kind of hard to do that when you guys just show up without asking! I’d prefer it if you left.” But all of that said, Cassie let out a strained breath and closed the difference between them, giving her older sister a hug. “It is good to see you, though.”

A slow smile spread across the woman’s face, and she hugged Cassie back. “It’s good to see you too, little sister.” Then they broke apart, the older sister looking more embarrassed by the show of affection. Her eyes focused on Mina, who was watching all of this with a slack-jawed expression, her normally pink face pale from the shock. “Are you going to continue being rude, or are you going to introduce me?”

“Ha,” Cassie huffed in the imitation of a laugh. “As if you don’t already know who she is.” The taller woman elbowed Cassie, and with no other choice, she complied. “This is Mina Ashido, an aspiring pro hero and my assigned partner for this trip. Mina, this is my older half-sister, Athena.”

It looked like Athena didn’t care for some of what Cassie had said. “You don’t have to put so much weight on the ‘half’ part, Cassie.” Then, she extended a hand to Mina. “It’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance, Mina Ashido.”

Slowly, Mina extended a pink palm and shook the woman’s hand, slowly, and both Cassie and Athena could see the wheels turning in her head as she looked from one sister to the other. “So...wait a second...you’re not...are you?” It made Cassie want to tear her hair out. Why did everyone have to react like this?!

If Athena cared at all about how this was making Cassie feel, she didn’t show it. “I am the Goddess of Wisdom, War, Courage, Law, Mathematics, and a great many other things. Cassie and I share a father, Zeus.” That explanation over with, it seemed like Athena realized for the first time what she’d interrupted. “Oh, were you painting Cassie’s nails?” Mina nodded, still star-struck. “Can you do mine as well? I need to relax.”

[CASSANDRA SANDSMARK/WONDER GIRL II! THIS POWERHOUSE DOESN’T HAVE A QUIRK, AND SHE DOESN’T NEED ONE EITHER! WHY? WELL, IT SEEMS THE HEAD GOD OF OLYMPUS IS STILL A FAN OF AFFAIRS, BECAUSE CASSIE’S HIS DAUGHTER! AS A DEMIGOD, SHE HAS ENHANCED STRENGTH, DURABILITY, AND REFLEXES! PLUS, SHE HAS SUPPORT ITEMS CRAFTED BY THE GODS THEMSELVES!]

And so a Greek goddess sat on Mina’s bed, and began what she’d really come here to do: complain about their other siblings. It was one of the many things Cassie hated about these family visits: they weren’t there for her, they were there so someone could agree with them after millenia of disputes. Athena came to complain about what Ares had been doing lately, and that Artemis needed to just pick a woman and settle down, and that Hermes needed to get off the computer at some point.

As Mina finished Cassie’s nails and started on the goddess’s, Cassie reflected on the other thing that she hated about people meeting her siblings. Athena, like the rest of them, was perfect. They were gods and goddesses, and despite having half the same genetics, Cassie wasn’t. She was a human. One imbued with special powers, sure, but still just a teenage girl. She had blonde hair that needed half an hour in the bathroom to look presentable, a pretty plain face, and a body that didn’t look special in the slightest. Sitting next to Athena, she looked like a nobody. More days than she’d care to admit, Cassie wish she’d just been born a regular human, just as powerless as her mother. Finally, in a break between complaints, Cassie slipped in a question. “Hey, how’s dad been?”

It had been years since she’d last asked the question, but she felt it couldn’t hurt at this point. Athena just shrugged. “Well, he’s still dad. But you know how he is: making Hera unhappy, avoiding responsibility however he can, enjoying human pleasures far too much.”

Cassie wasn’t able to bring herself to do more than let out an annoyed huff. “No, I don’t really know, Athena. I’ve still never actually met dad, remember?” Things got awkward quickly after that, and once the nails were done Athena had to leave, though she did promise a boon to Mina as thanks for the nails. Cassie was pretty sure Mina had no clue what that meant.

Now that it was back to just Mina and Cassie, she knew what was going to happen next. Mina would start gushing about Athena, want to meet the other siblings, get godly favors, the whole works. That’s what had happened with Kole, after all. “I don’t want to sound rude, but your sis is a jerk!” That stunned Cassie completely, leaving her unprepared for the rest of the tyrade. “She just showed up out of nowhere, even when you told her not to! Then, she just vented to you, didn’t listen to you, and left the second you tried talking to her about how  _ you _ felt!”

Before she realized what she was doing, Cassie had risen from the bed and given Mina a hug that was probably more than a little too tight. “Thank you,” she whispered. “Thank you so much.” Cassie loved her siblings, but it was amazing to hear someone see them and not go gaga right away. “Can you...not tell anyone else about that?” Mina promised to keep the secret, and they spent the rest of the night not mentioning Athena or Cassie’s semi-divine heritage.


	13. Chapter 10-Running and Crying

Despite his fairly odd appearance, Hanta Sero had a habit of fading into the background. He was no Koda, but compared to some of the explosive personalities in his class, it was only natural that a lot of his classmates would sometimes forget about him. It was nothing Hanta was too broken up about, but it did mean that he had aspects of who he was that his friends never really noticed. One, for example, was that he enjoyed jogging around the campus in the early morning.

His mother had been a cross-country runner before he was born, and she’d passed her love for post-dawn exercise to her son. Back before the dorm situation, he’d done a full hour jog, making turns where he felt like while keeping track of the path so he knew how to easily get back home. Now that he lived at UA, he was restricted to the perimeter of the school. It kept him in the kind of shape that was useful for his Quirk, since he was definitely on-track to be the kind of hero whose mobility was a major asset.

But more than that, Hanta just enjoyed the time he could spend by himself, letting his mind go where it wanted, and taking in the crisp air, still unheated by the sun’s gaze, and the sounds the world waking up to a new day. This particular morning, his mind kept going back to the recent test. His team, lead by Momo, had been tasked in their simulation with finding the hideout of a gang of villains called The Rogues, and taking many into custody as possible. They’d actually been able to find the secret base pretty well, thanks to Koda using wildlife to get as much intel as possible.

It was when they tried entering the place that things got messy. They’d been careless, and the place was filled with traps. Exploding marbles, flowers that sprayed acid, invisible glue, it was all silly stuff, but it as they continued they’d started getting a hang on the twisted logic behind them. Which was why when they were suddenly trapped inside a mirror, with now way of escape, they lost their test out of nowhere. They still hadn’t gotten their detailed feedback, but Mr. Aizawa had told them they should have researched their assigned foes more before going in, as knowing what the Trickster and Mirror Master could do would have helped them quite a bit in avoiding capture.

Almost back to the dorm, Hanta let out a sigh. He felt back for Momo. In so many ways, she was top of their class, and had all the makings of a great hero. But their loss in the combat exam really shook her confidence, and they’d all felt like she was rushing through the investigation test. He wanted to try and give her a pep talk, but he was honestly no good with talking to pretty girls. Which made his assigned partner, who he noticed was waiting outside the dorm, more than a little difficult. “Morning, Sero!” she called, waving a pale arm at him.

[ANTONIA MONETTI/ARGENT! HER QUIRK: PLASMA! SHE CAN IONIZE THE AIR INTO A SILVER PLASMA THAT ONLY SHE CAN CONTROL! SHE CAN USE IT TO DEFEND AGAINST EVEN THE STRONGEST ENEMY ATTACKS, STRIKE BACK AT HER OPPONENT’S, OR EVEN MAKE ART WITH IT! SHE’S WON SIX DIFFERENT ART PROJECTS BACK AT TITAN’S ACADEMY USING HER QUIRK!]

Doing his best to look in a better mood than he felt, Hanta smiled and waved back as he reached her. “Hey, Nia.” That was what she preferred to be called. In the last week, they actually hadn’t spent a ton of time together. Part of that was clearly from Hanta’s shyness around the cute girl, but Nia seemed to enjoy spending time with people from her class, which made sense to him. But even when they did spend time together, she felt...odd. “What are you doing up so early? Class doesn’t start for another few hours.”

For just a second, Hanta could have sworn that Nia flinched at the question, but otherwise she still looked pretty happy to see him. “Just couldn’t sleep. How was your jog?” From there they made a little small talk as they entered the heated interior of the dorm building’s common room. In most ways, Nia was just a really cute teenage girl, with a gorgeous face and a lithe build. What gave her an exotic edge was her complexion, so unearthly pale it was basically as white as someone could imagine, which clashed with her pitch black hair and the dark clothes she was usually wearing.

It was while she was telling him about something that had happened recently to Karen Beecher that he noticed the dark bags under her eyes. She clearly hadn’t been lying about her difficulties sleeping. Thinking back on it, he went over some of the things he’d been noticing. She yawned a lot, even if she tried to hide them, and was clearly tired despite her perky attitude. Sometimes he noticed her just kind of zone out, and when she did, he felt like some imperceptible sadness touched her expression. Once she’d finished her story, Hanta decided to go for it. “Hey, Nia, are you doing okay?”

“Hmm?” she asked, and for a moment he could see inner conflict in her eyes, like she wasn’t sure what to do next, how to respond to his question. But then she gave him a smile with a little too much cheer to it. “Oh, I’m fine Sero. Actually, I have to go get ready for class, see you later!” With that, she dashed away. Hanta didn’t really buy her answer, it felt like an excuse to ditch the conversation, but there really wasn’t anything  _ he _ could do about it. If she didn’t want to tell him, that was her business. And who knows? Maybe he was just reading too much into things.

* * *

When Virgil Hawkins heard the crying from through the door, he knew he’d been right. He and his assigned partner, Momo Yaoyarozu, had plans to meet up after class that day, but when she was a no show, he went out to look for her. She’d been in a funk for a while now, and it was getting worse, not better. After a bit of thinking, his first guess on where she’d turn up was the room they’d done the simulated tests in two days before, and Virgil had been right. Instead of just barging in, he knocked first. “...yes?” came Momo’s voice.

Taking that as a sign he could enter, he opened the door and found her sitting at a desk, face still a little splotchy from crying. Virgil was happy his dad has pressed upon him the importance of carrying a handkerchief wherever he went, because it gave him the opportunity to offer her a white cloth from his pocket after he’d approached her. “Talk to me, Momo. What’s going on?” He had more than a few guesses on what was making her upset, but he didn’t want to presume.

She took the handkerchief gratefully and started cleaning up her tear streaks, her eyes gravitating to looking down at the desk top rather than at Virgil. “I feel like I’m failing my team...and myself too.” Rather than say anything to that, Virgil let her have more time to elaborate, which she used. “I was admitted to UA by recommendation, but all year long I’ve had such difficulties putting my skills to practice in the field. At the Sports Festival, during the summer training camp, and now with our team assignments. It’s because of me we failed the investigation simulation, and it’s my fault we lost in the first round of combat examinations.”

Momo finished that last sentence with a huff of disappointed air, and Virgil felt it was time to step in. “Momo, my team lost in the first round too. We were both against tough teams, and we did our best.” Then, he shrugged. “So what if you didn’t nail your first ever simulation? No one in our school did. We’re all just more used to them now. From everything I’ve seen, your only problem is confidence.”

Despite his best hopes, Virgil’s words seemed to fall on deaf ears. “You don’t understand, Virgil,” she said, tears welling up in her eyes again. “It feels like...my best isn’t enough. So many of my classmates are pushing so far, doing so well. And I feel like I’m miles behind them, that there’s no way I can make up that difference.” Without her realizing it, Momo’s words lit a fire in Virgil.

“That isn’t your problem. It’s UA’s.” Clenching his jaw a little in anger, he felt he might as well tell her how he felt about all of this. “They keep pressing this on you. ‘Plus Ultra! Plus Ultra!’ Man, screw Plus Ultra!” That got her attention, and he didn't stop. “Taking pride in what you do is a good thing, but pushing yourself to unhealthy extremes to get results is a terrible way of doing things. I bet one of those people you were talking about, who seems miles ahead of you, is Midoriya, right?” Momo nodded her head. “Have you ever looked at that kid? At his scars? I’ve heard about all the bones he’s broken so far this year.”

That made Momo scowl, the first time she’d ever looked at Virgil with anything like disapproval. “That’s not fair, Virgil. His Quirk was too powerful for his body, but he’s gotten better at using it now, he hasn’t hurt himself in a while.” Shaking his head, Virgil used his Quirk to send out a quick zap of electricity into his pocket, magnetizing his phone to pull it out of his jeans and into his open hand.

[VIRGIL HAWKINS/STATIC! HIS QUIRK: STATIC SHOCK! VIRGIL’S BODY TURNS SOME OF HIS ENERGY INTO ELECTRICITY, WHICH HE CAN SHOOT OUT WITH WAY BETTER CONTROL AND DIRECTION THAN POOR KAMINARI! IT’S NOT AS STRONG, BUT IT HAS THE UPSIDE OF BEING ABLE TO MAGNETIZE METAL OBJECTS SO HE CAN MOVE THEM AROUND AT WILL! IT’S A GOOD THING HE GOT A SPECIAL SUPPORT ITEM PHONE THAT DOESN’T GET WIPED EVERY TIME HE ZAPS IT!]

“It’s not just his Quirk. That kid  _ lives _ Plus Ultra. He’s probably going to be a great hero, but he’s also probably going to die before he hits thirty.” Those words hit Momo hard, and Virgil chose then to show her a picture on his phone. “This is my Dad. I love him. He’s been working blue collar jobs his entire life, and he puts in more hours than anyone else, always goes above and beyond. Now, he needs to take high-end painkillers for his back problems, and he has to use a cane to walk around.

“I’m not the top of my class, but I’m never at the bottom either. I do my best, and I try to make sure my team does theirs too. But we shouldn’t be pushing ourselves to crazy extremes. We’re training for a job, an important one, and we won’t be able to save people if we’re not physically and mentally in our best place.” Virgil slipped his phone into his pocket and got up to leave. “It’s your life, Momo, and it’s up to you on how you want to live it. It might sound selfish, but you need to consider yourself sometimes, and the expectations you’re putting on yourself aren’t helping.”

He was leaving the room when she spoke up, real fire in her voice. “I’m sorry about what happened to your father, Virgil. But...I believe in Plus Ultra. Maybe it does take its toll on us sometimes, but...I can’t just be happy with where I am. I need to strive to be better. Because that will make me a better hero, and a better person.” Without turning around, Virgil shrugged and left the room. He’d done what he could, it was up to Momo if she actually took his words to heart or not.


	14. Chapter 11-Showers and Sushi

One of the things Mashirao Ojiro took most pride in was his observational skills. Just as his Quirk wasn’t the kind that got a lot of attention for others, his naturally quiet nature meant he was one to listen and watch more than interact directly with others. It was from that experience that he was able to tell fairly quickly into this cultural exchange that his assigned partner, Grant Emmerson, was hiding something. The two hadn’t spent a tone of time together, as Grant seemed to want to spend most of his time in his room, and Mashirao wasn’t one to object.

When they had hung out together, he’d quickly noticed that the young hero never took off his hero mask, always keeping his face concealed. No matter how warmly heated a room was, he always wore long-sleeved shirts and gloves. He shied away from personal contact, always moving out of the way when anyone came anywhere near him. It wasn’t quick, jerky motions, but preplanned steps aside that other people likely paid no attention to. He didn’t talk a lot, though it wasn’t like Mashirao had a lot of room to throw stones in that department.

It was all something Mashirao kept in mind, but it wasn’t like he was going to actively investigate it or try to pry. Personal things like that always made him feel awkward, and if Grant wanted to keep to himself, that was his business. It only really became Mashirao’s too when he entered a locker room to change. He must have done so pretty quietly, because Grant was still in there, wearing only a towel, and no mask.

The first thing that jumped out to Mashirao was how muscular Grant was. Since they were all training to be heroes, certain levels of musculature were expected among students. But Grant was in a class all his own, probably even buffer than Sato, with his rusty hued skin stretched over massive thews and bulging pectoral muscles. If Grant went to the pool like this, Midoriya wouldn’t be the one getting all the stares.

Of course, there was another reason people would be looking at Grant. The second thing that was immediately clear about Grant was that his entire torso, some of his right arm, and parts of his face were all covered in scar tissue. These weren’t like Midoriya’s Quirk-related scars, or the burns that Bakugo tended to leave on others. There weren’t random, or caused by internal injury. That would have been Mashirao’s first guess, considering his Quirk.

[GRANT EMERSON/DAMAGE! HIS QUIRK: ATOMIC FISTS! GRANT’S BODY ABSORBS ANY ENERGY IT CAN, THEN HE CAN UNLEASH IT WITH ATOMICALLY POWERED EXPLOSIVE PUNCHES! OH, AND DON’T WORRY ABOUT RADIATION FROM IT, FOLKS AT HOME! THE SCIENCY TYPES SAY THAT THE WAVES GIVEN OFF AREN’T DANGEROUS TO HUMANS IN SMALL DOSES!]

All of this scar tissue was...deliberate. They were all in English, but Mashirao was doing well enough in that class to understand some of them. They were insults, curse words, and...ones he didn’t really understand. The words seemed almost random. ‘Worthless’ was repeated a lot, so was ‘brat’, though Ojiro didn't know what that word meant. The scars that weren’t words were just cuts, long thin ones, that hadn’t healed correctly.

Even if Mashirao didn’t entirely understand all of it, he definitely understood why Grant didn’t want other people seeing all of this. Being self-conscious about it was...”Quit staring at me!” Grant shouted, and Mashirao realized he’d been so busy observing the scars, he’d missed how upset Grant looked. “Get out of here!” For a moment, Mashirao almost thought he saw Grant’s fists light up with atomic energy. Realizing how much he had accidentally invaded his partner’s privacy, Mashirao left the room and kept going. He changed somewhere else, and for the next two weeks, Grant didn’t say a single word to him.

* * *

While she had been somewhat skeptical at first, Princess Koriand’r of Tamaran was finding this ‘Japan’ to be incredibly interesting! Up to this trip, she’d spent all of her time on Earth in the country known as the ‘United States of America’, and until recently she had thought all of the planet and its people were similar to those she knew. But this trip was proving that to be very different! Not only did the people here speak another language, but they were different in many other ways as well!

The architecture, the mythology, the government, it all made Kori wonder if she’d gone to another planet entirely. Or perhaps...this was just what it was like, when a sapient species was able to successfully populate their planet. Something the Tamaraneans had never come close to accomplishing. This particular evening, she and the Earth Metahuman known as Denki Kaminari were eating dinner together at a restaurant that served small portions of uncooked fish. This ‘sushi’ was actually quite delicious, and Kori was happy for the recommendation. “Thank you, Friend Kaminari! This meal was been wonderful!” The fact that Earth people from the country of Japan preferred to be called by their family name rather that their given one, as was the custom in the America, was something that had initially taken Kori time to understand.

They had been eating dinner for several hours now. Well, Kori supposed that was not entirely accurate. Friend Kaminari, who had been assigned to her as a partner for safety when outside the school, had not eaten much food, which he claimed was not a problem. Instead, he had watched as Kori ate plate after plate of delicious food, but for a reason Kori was not able to determine, he seemed to look more sullen and downtrodden the longer she ate. When Kori was finally satisfactorily full, she gave Friend Kaminari a compassionate look. “Have I done something to upset you, Friend Kaminari?”

Her question made him seem to try looking happier than he clearly felt. “No, I’m fine Starfire. I just...” The blond hero let out a sigh. “This stuff is expensive, so I’m probably going to be broke after all you’ve eaten.” Like many of Kori’s Earth friends, Friend Kaminari preferred to refer to her as her hero name, Starfire, which she did not mind.

It had taken Kori some time to understand the concept of ‘money’ that Earth people seemed to be so obsessed over. On Tamaran, their economy, if it could be called such a thing, was entirely run by the royal family, and an intermediary for transferring value was not required. But after living three years on the planet Earth, she at the very least knew that many Earth people put a high value on it. Seeing now what he was worried over, Kori reassured him. “Friend Kaminari, you paid for my own dinner several nights previous to this one. I will pay for both of us.” As she’d expected, the final bill was something she could easily pay.

Thanks to various scholarships, including some only for students from other planets, and selling to Earth scientists what advantages she had from being from a spacefaring culture, Kori was not often worried about finances. Now that they were done at the restaurant, they began to walk back towards the school. Night had fallen, and Kori couldn’t help turning her head up to stare at the night sky. Her bright orange skin, green eyes, and burnt red hair made it clear to all that she was not normal, and to those who knew their intergalactic warriors, it marked her as a Tamaranian.

[PRINCESS KORIAND’R OF TAMARAN! SHE’S ANOTHER STUDENT WITH NO QUIRK, BECAUSE SHE’S A FREAKING ALIEN FROM THE OTHER END OF THE GALAXY! THAT’S RIGHT, EVERYBODY, THERE’S LIFE BEYOND THE STARS AND SOME OF THEM ARE REALLY CUTE GIRLS! HER ALIEN BIOLOGY GIVES HER THE ABILITY FLY THROUGH THE AIR, FIRE ENERGY BLASTS FROM HER HANDS, AND MAKES HER STRONG ENOUGH BEND STEEL WITH HER PINKY FINGER!]

“Getting homesick?” came Friend Kaminari’s voice, breaking Kori out of her revery. Now he was looking at the stars too. “I can’t even imagine what it’s like, flying through space, other planets. You must miss where you’re from a lot, huh?”

While Kori knew that he did not realize the things he was saying was bringing up bad memories, she still couldn’t help but feel somewhat frustrated at Friend Kaminari. “I am not homesick. Many of my memories of home...are not very good ones.” Suddenly, a nearby sign caught her attention, and any bad mood lingering on her psyche disappeared. “Oh! Friend Kaminari! It is the ‘karaoke’! Let us invite more friends, and we shall sing together!” From there, he explained to Kori that, considering how late it was, it would probably be best if they waited for a weekend night to do that, but did promise to get a bunch of people together for it. Another look at the stars in the sky made Kori flinch, as memories of the Dominators and what they did her came unbidden to the forefront of her mind.


	15. Chapter 12-Privacy and Honesty

It hadn’t taken very long for Ochaco Uraraka to realize that her assigned partner was absent from class, again. It hadn’t been exactly a regular occurrence since the American students had come to the school, and it had never been two days in a row, but this also hadn’t been the first time. Before, she hadn’t done anything about it. After all, she was just supposed to accompany the girl on trips outside of campus, which she had yet to take even a single time. They hadn’t really bonded, partially because she hadn’t opened up to Ochaco at all.

Still, by lunch time, she couldn’t keep quiet about it any longer. Turning to look at Iida, she asked, “Raven hasn’t been in class at all today, again. I’m actually kind of worried about her. Do you think I should check on her?” The UA and Titans students had lunch at different times, so it was just Ochaco, Iida, Deku, Tsuyu and Todoroki eating together that day.

As was expected, their class representative rushed into answering first. “That depends! Have you tried contacting her through text messages?” The question came with the weird hand gestures that were what Ochaco expected from Iida, and she nodded her head to confirm. “And she hadn’t responded?”

“She hasn’t even  _ seen  _ them.” That was odd in and of itself. While Raven hadn’t exactly been talkative in-person, she usually responded to Ochaco’s texts pretty promptly. They weren’t exactly friendly responses, but they were polite. Between that and the absence, Ochaco was torn between worrying for a teenage girl she barely knew and being afraid of coming off as a weirdo and disturbing her privacy.

Now it was time for Deku to offer his thoughts. Looking like he had a pretty good understanding of how she was feeling, he offered, “In that case, I think checking on her is a good idea. Maybe just knock on her door, ask if she needs anything? Or wants to talk?” Ochaco immediately imagined that scenario, and knew it would likely lead to being on the receiving end of Raven’s famous acerbic wit, but it was still the best idea she had. So, once she was done with her food, Ochaco left the main UA building and went to the dorm built for Titans students, climbed up to the sixth floor, and knocked on Raven’s door.

There was no response, even with Ochaco pressing her ear to the door. Starting to feel genuinely tense about the situation, Ochaco asked, trying to not sound as scared as she felt, “Hey, Raven? It’s Ochaco. Just checking in on you. Are you okay?” Again, there was no reply. With a shaky hand, she reached out and tried the doorknob, and found it unlocked. Holding her breath, she opened the door and entered Raven’s domain.

It wasn’t the first time she’d gone in, and it was the same atmosphere as before, a sense of dark and the occult that reminded her of Tokoyami’s room more than anything else. She’d painted the walls and ceiling black, there were no sources of artificial lights aside from candles, and a bookshelf stood near the far wall, its shelves aching from the weight of the thick tomes stacked onto its wood.

Of course, the thing that really caught Ochaco’s eyes was Raven herself. The pale skinned, black-haired girl was floating in the air, in a meditative position, eyes closed and repeating something so quiet that Ochaco couldn’t make out even a single syllable. Under her was a symbol, drawn in chalk in the dark wood paneling, surrounded by a circle. On the circle’s edges were black candles, somehow burning black flames that ate light rather than giving it out. It was the same hue of darkness that surrounded Raven’s body, an aura of magic. She was dressed in extremely casual clothes, a beige sweatshirt and dark blue sweatpants, and the bright red of the jewel inset into her forehead stood out clearly.

[RAVEN ROTH/RAVEN! THIS BIRDLY BEAUTY DOESN’T HAVE A QUIRK, PARTIALLY BECAUSE SHE’S ONLY HALF-HUMAN! BUT UNLIKE SOME OF HER CLASSMATE’S, THAT OTHER HALF ISN’T ALIEN, ISN’T DIVINE, IT’S DEMONIC! RAVEN’S POPPA WAS A GENUINE INTERDIMENSIONAL RED-SKINNED BEING OF PURE EVIL, AND THAT BLOODLINE MEANS RAVEN’S GOT MAJOR MOJO! SHE CAN FLY, LEVITATE OBJECTS WITH HER MIND, AND READ THE EMOTIONS OF OTHER PEOPLE!]

Okay, now Ochaco  _ really _ felt like she was interrupting. She honestly didn’t know how long she was standing there, watching an actual witch doing...well...clearly something magical. When it finally occurred to her to try and quietly sneak out of the room without Raven noticing, one of the girl in question’s eyes opened and locked onto Ochaco. “Uraraka.” Her voice, like always, came out so flatly that Ochacho felt like it would take an archeology team working for weeks to find any evidence of emotion in it. Still, without being able to actually hear and displeasure, Ochaco still felt like Raven was mad at her, and winced as she opened the other eye, and her aura dissipated at the same time the candles all simultaneously went out.

While Raven slowly fell back to the ground, extending her legs to land standing up, seemingly unconcerned with her assigned partner seeing her in such casual wear, very different from the leotard and cloak she normally wore, Ochaco rushed out, “Oh, sorry! I was just, kinda worried, since you were absent again...do you want me to share my notes with you? I mean, for the classes we share.”

“I appreciate your concern,” Raven replied immediately, her voice betraying no hint to how true that actually was. “Gar takes notes for me for days like today.” There was no explanation of what ‘days like today’ were, but Ochaco must have registered her surprise about Garfield Logan, who had always struck her as silly to say the least, taking notes for her, hints of an actual frown played at the ends of Raven’s lips. “He’s smarter than most people give him credit. He takes excellent notes.”

Feeling a little cornered, Ochaco took a few steps back, and with each step back Raven took one forward, driving her towards the door. “Oh, well, uh, is there anything you want me to tell your teachers?” Ochaco was glad she wasn’t stumbling over her feet as much as she was stumbling over her words, otherwise she would have tripped.

Just as Ochaco walked out the door and into the hall, Raven told her, “They already know. Please don’t come in my room without my permission again.” Then the door slammed shut, and Ochaco was left walking back to school, feeling like she’d done something really bad to Raven. Clearly, she wanted her privacy respected, and now Ochaco knew she just could have talked to Mr. Grayson, instead of making a fool out of herself. Still, Ochaco couldn’t help thinking back to Raven, floating with crossed legs in mid-air, and wonder what she had to do that involved missing class...

* * *

Perhaps his perception was a tad bit biased, but Joseph Wilson didn’t find anything in the world so relaxing as painting. That was why, for the first time since the two schools came together, he and his assigned partner Tsuyu Asui were spending some time together, as he painted a portrait of her in her hero costume. It had been her idea to try and bond, since she had spent the last two weeks busy with her team leader’s training, which only got more strenuous as the next day of combat training came closer. Somehow, Asui had managed to talk a day off out of the explosive hothead.

They were out, on the grounds, with Asui posing and Joseph starting his sketch, from which the eventual portrait would be painted. Their lack of time together thus far had also been partially his fault, as for obvious reasons he wasn’t the most sociable person in his class. It was a half an hour into their time together, with the base of her figure on the paper, when she asked her first question of him. “So, are you able to hear people talk? Or are you just really good at reading lips?”

It was a common question he got, and with an easy smile Joseph pulled out his communication sketchpad and wrote his answer to show her. “I’m mute, but I can still hear. I actually really love listening to classical music, so losing my hearing would be quite the loss.” He was well aware a lot of abled people saw someone not talking and immediately inferred they couldn’t hear as well, so Joseph always tried to be gentle in that correction, when he could.

Joseph barely had time to get back to sketching when Asui asked him something else. “Were you born mute? Or did something happen to you?” The question made Joseph silently laugh to himself. He’d heard that Asui was quite the blunt person, but this was a refreshing change of pace from how many people he knew just stared, and danced around things they were afraid he might find alarming.

“My vocal chords were severed beyond repair. I would prefer not to discuss the matter in more detail.” The scar from the injury marred Joseph’s otherwise pale, slender neck. A lot of people, especially girls, called him “pretty”, with his well-maintained curly brown hair and a dress sense that made most people think of the 1980’s, with bright colors like sky blue and purple. Joseph wasn’t one to shy away from his disability, he did like to steer clear of the cause. When one’s father was a master assassin and supervillain, whose work was the direct cause of a life-altering injury, it wasn’t something one liked to reflect too much on, let alone casually share with others. Sometimes, Joseph wished Orphan was more literate, he’d love to discuss their shared trauma, if she’d be okay with that.

From there, Asui was a little more quiet, and Joseph was able to finish his basic sketch of her body, and start working on the scenery. She was sitting under a tree, surrounded by grass, the wall of a nearby dorm building behind them. Joseph thought it made for an interesting, rustic visual that matched the Frog Hero quite well. Just as he’d finished the rough outlines and was ready to start sharpening the detail, Asui asked, “So, with your quirk, how exactly are you planning to be a hero?”

[JOSEPH WILSON/JERICHO! HIS QUIRK: WINDOW TO THE SOUL! WHENEVER HE MAKES EYE CONTACT WITH SOMEONE ELSE, HE CAN LEAVE HIS BODY TO POSSESS THEIRS! FOR THE NEXT TEN MINUTES, HE CAN CONTROL THEIR BODY PERFECTLY, EVEN USE THEIR QUIRK! TOO BAD IT REQUIRES EYE CONTACT WITH BOTH EYES, FOR HIM AND THE OTHER PERSON, AND HE CAN’T READ THEIR MIND WHILE HE’S IN THERE!]

Once again, Joseph couldn’t help but chuckle without sound. “Well,” he started writing. “I can handle myself pretty well when I need to. But in terms of my Quirk, I do need to be careful.” Ever since Quirks that involved mind control, possession, or other sorts of ways to bend free will became prevalent, the law had needed to be clarified with it, especially with heroes. “So long as I don’t cause a villain or civilian to come to undue harm, I can possess them. With other heroes, so long as they’re willing, I’m also able to possess them, without that restriction. Why do you ask?”

“Ribbit,” Asui croaked, and Joseph gave her some time to think of a response while he worked more on his art. “There was this classmate at our Sports Festival, who fought Izuku. He got pretty far, especially for someone in General Studies. Izuku told us all later, he has a mind control Quirk, and has a tough time trying to be a hero, because our school system isn’t really made to support people like him. I just wondered if you had a similar issue.”

Thanks to his father’s harsh training, Joseph had never doubted his abilities to enter Titans based on his physical acumen alone. But he definitely ran into roadblocks, his Quirk wasn’t traditionally heroic by any means. He’d been told, by friends, that there were some people at his school who whispered about their fears of him becoming a villain like his father. How dangerous he’d be with the Quirk. Still, Joseph was happy to do his best and let other people think what they would. Still, this other student sounded interesting, and he got his name from Asui afterwards. Maybe, on a free day, he’d reach out to this Shinso to see if he truly was someone who could relate to him.


	16. Interlude 3

In the middle of a dark alley, the fall air crisp and cold, a man appeared. He didn’t appear through a dark portal, in a trenchcoat while smoking a cigarette, slowly killing his lungs to make sure he seemed really cool to the audience. He didn’t appear out of a door, wearing meager clothes and huddling down, trying to conserve warmth to show his vulnerability and humanity.

No, this man appeared in a quick flash of light, leaving a smell behind that would remind anyone who unfortunately let it into their nose of wood pulp. It would be impossible for any layperson on the street to give a single concrete descriptor for this man, if or when a government agent questioned them about seeing such an event, aside from his height (average) and his build (a bit of a dad-bod). The reason for this was that his entire body was covered with a bright green costume, with yellow lines and a pair of antennae coming from his head.

Looking around the alley, the man began to grumble. “Oh, good one,  **Ambush Bug** . Now, I’m in  **Qurac** , of all places. I’ve tried  **Gotham City** ,  **Metropolis** , even the  **Big Apple** !” Sinking to his knees in existential despair, the hero(?) began to embrace the ennui. “No  **protagonists** ! No  **narrative** ! No  **audience** !” Instinctually, he turned his head to face a direction and cried, “What am I going to do?!”

Then, he blinked. Or at least, one must assume he did, considering his head was covered by a mask. He looked around, feeling something he knew quite well, only in an entirely new variant. “I’m...here? Possibly?” He briefly looked in the air, as if expecting to see something there, but there was nothing by his warm breath visible in the air. “No speech bubbles? So...do I not need to  **bold** important words for the readers?” Scratching his head, he rose to stand again, and brushed off his knees. “Well, this is certainly novel. Well, based on this prose, more likely fan-fiction, but still.

“The written word's a new thing for me,” he explained to the person reading this right now. “See, I was born in comics, they’re still my favorite. Very visual, I can just read the pictures and ignore everyone else’s word balloons. Then, I was in a Tabletop RPG Module.” He shuddered, like a spider was crawling up his back. “Let me tell you, having to hijack GM’s bodies to be a character is not the way I like to live my life, not at all.”

Ambush Bug spat onto the ground. Or at least, he tried to, but once again his mask got in the way, leaving his spit inside his costume with him. Gross. “But even that was kinda visual! And then...and then...my crowning achievement!” Posing dramatically, in a way he probably thought looked amazing but any onlooker would charitably describe as ‘really heckin’ weird’, he exclaimed, “ _ Batman: The Brave and The Bold _ ! I got to be in the series finale, and voiced by the Fonz! The Foooooonnnnnnnzzzzzzz!” Dropping to his knees as he shouted the name of Henry Winkler’s most famous role, he then quickly added, “Oh, and I guess I was in an MMO too, that was a thing.”

Looking from left to right, seeing only descriptions, vague ones at that, rather than the gorgeous pencils and color work of Keith Giffen and Anthony Tollin, the pathetic excuse for a hero actually started to cry. “There’s no art! Just words! They’re my least favorite parts of the comics, and they’re all I have now!” He tried to look at the reader, only to realize another failing of his current medium. “There’s no Fourth Wall, no page to stare at, giving the illusion I’m looking at  _ you _ !” With no other choice, he realized exposition was his only true tool. “Please, for the love of Kirby, look me up online! I’ve got a Wikipedia page, and even better, I’m on TvTropes! Read my other stories, and save me from this alphabetic nightmare!” Then, just before the interlude scene ended, Ambush Bug looked back at an earlier description. “Hey, what do you mean ‘pathetic excuse for a hero’?”


	17. Chapter 13-Joint Combat Exercise, Round 2

Maybe it was petty of her, but Avery Ho did not like busses. Hell, she didn’t like any vehicles, really. She wanted to be running! With her Quirk, she could get to the USJ so much faster than this hunk of metal. But, she had to admit to herself, it was more practical (and more fair) to ride with the rest of her class. After all, she was going to need to use her speed in the fight, and she didn’t want to use too much charge when she didn’t need to.

Of course, the slowness wasn’t the only reason she wasn’t exactly going to sing the praises of the internal combustion engine. Sitting on a bus, sitting next to some of her classmates, only dredged up bad memories. It hadn’t been too long when she’d rode city busses not too different from the one UA was letting them use...back when she’d been normal. Before she’d received her Quirk.

Nope! Avery was  **not** going to think about that anymore. Mr. Allen and Mr. West had made it clear that was to be avoided as much as possible, what with the fact that there were more than a few people out there with the ability to read minds, including the Martian on the bus with her. Avery wasn’t going to complain about keeping that part of her past out of her mind, either. It was...stressful, contemplating that.

Still, it wasn’t really too long before their bus stopped, and the whole class from Titans Academy filed out, half of them ready to fight, the other ready to watch. Another bus pulled up next to them, and from that came all of Class 1-A from UA. Together, they all entered the frankly enormous dome structure, and Avery was pretty impressed by what they found inside. Built for disaster simulations, the USJ contained mini-environments, dozens of them, and that just made Avery more excited for what was to come. Using things like these for their battles would be so much more fun than some stupid indoor Quirk training room. More variety! More opportunities!

On the other end of the spectrum, the kids from 1-A weren’t looking nearly as happy about the locale. In fact, Avery started to notice them looking around, sad looks on their faces, and wondered what that was all about. But before she could zip over to ask Iida, Mr. Grayson and Mr. Aizawa walked out in front of them all. The exhausted looking Japanese pro hero looked at the students murmuring to themselves and glared. “Quiet down.” The noise disappeared, and the teacher went from looking upset to bored instantly. “As you can see, for the second round of the Joint Combat Exercise, you’ll be fighting here, at the USJ. I know some of you in my class have some bad memories tied up here, and while we’re taking every precaution, if you would prefer not to spend time here, talk to either myself or Nightwing, and we’ll help you.”

That just made Avery more curious, but she had to refocus on her own teacher as he took up talking with a smile. “Over to our right is a seating area Cementoss made this morning, where all the spectators will sit. There are also monitors and drone cameras, which you can thank Power Loader for. That way, you’ll all be able to actually see the fights pretty well, along with us teachers.” It was then that, looking over at the seating area, Avery realized other UA teachers, and Ms. Clay, were already seated, and several of them waved. Even All Might was there. “Now, I bet you’re all wondering how the fights are going to work, huh?”

In fact, yes, Avery had been devoting quite a bit of brainpower to that question ever since the first round, more than a week ago now. Mr. Aizawa took up explaining that, with his usual lack of enthusiasm. “Instead of three fights per match, this time there will be four. No fancy cards or other gimmicks, either. We choose one team leader to suggest their fighter, then the other leader says who will be fighting that person. Then, the one who had to choose first gets to pick which environment the fight will take place in. Each team gets two chances to go first and two to go second.” Avery had to laugh at what came next: half a dozen students all raising their hands while staring at their teacher. Most were team leaders, and some weren’t even still in the running! Speaking of whom, with a sigh, Mr. Aizawa focused his attention on one student in particular and asked, “Yes, Iida?”

“I have a question!” the bespectacled hero in training began, clearly speaking from his diaphragm. Avery couldn’t believe he started his question by telling everyone he’d be asking one, the guy was a laugh riot. She wondered if he ever took that stick out of his ass, or if he just liked having it there. “What will happen in the case of a tie? It is clearly possible with this system for each team to secure two wins, which would lead to no clear winner!”

With what everyone had been thinking out in the open, it looked like Mr. Grayson was happy to tackle it. Pointing a gloved finger at the seating area, he replied, “That’s what we’re here for. Not only will everyone be getting detailed feedback, but we’ll also be here to watch in real-time, and if there’s a tie, we’ll call the winner based on who acted as a better team leader.” The vagueness of that qualification boggled Avery’s mind, but there was no time to ask more questions, because Mr. Grayson was waving a hand towards the seats. “Alright, everyone not on Tim or Avery’s team, go over there. Let’s get this show on the road!”

With her team at her back, and Tim’s at his, they approached their two teachers. Avery’s heart, which was always more than a little faster than a normal person’s, sped up even more with anticipation. She’d always seen Tim as her greatest rival, and this was a chance to show him up. Her confidence was at all time high, and when she was told that she got to choose first, she immediately said, “I’ll start things off!” A quick look at her opponent showed that he’d expected that.

Her decision had come to her quickly, and once out there, Avery just waited to hear who she’d be fighting. Tim took a little longer, but he finally chose with, “She’ll fight Cyborg.” Ooh! Now, there was something interesting! Thus far that year of school, Avery had never gone toe to metal toe with the half-man, half-arsenal, and the opportunity wasn’t one she was about to pass up.

Suddenly, Avery realized all eyes were on her again, she needed to choose where they’d be fighting. Looking from the higher elevation of the entrance area, over the various environments, before quickly saying, “The cityscape!” It had a lot of flat, open area to run through, while still giving her places to hide, if she needed it. No sooner had she made the decision than she ran down the stairs using her Quirk, reading the main street of the fake city in a second. She had to wait a bit longer for Vic to meet her there, and they took battle ready poses.

“Alright, a few last rules,” came Mr. Aizawa’s voice through loudspeakers. “You lose if you’re rendered immobile, surrender, lose consciousness, or leave the bounds of the cityscape. Seriously injuring your opponent will cause  _ you _ to lose the fight, and bring disciplinary action on you. You can fight now.” With that innocuous declaration, Vic didn’t waste any time. His dominant hand transformed into a sonic cannon, and it was pointed at Avery. Or rather, pointed at where she’d just been. With a tank of an opponent like Vic, Avery wasn’t just going to stand around. In fact, she’d already zipped away, leaving a light trail of purple lightning behind her, into alleyways and into the dense cityscape.

As she expected, Vic reluctantly entered the narrow space between buildings to search for her, not even considering that she’d run up the side of a building after a few twists and turns and was now watching him from a rooftop. She took a deep breath, and readied herself for her plan. It was risky, but she was Avery Ho. Risk and reward came hand in hand. She lined herself up with a corner of the building she was on, and a quick peek confirmed Vic was walking closer, and at a steady space. Taking a deep breath, Avery waited for what should have been exactly the right moment and hoped her timing was perfect.

Burning through almost all of her stored electricity, maxing out what she was capable of getting for the Speed Force, Avery vibrated her body, so fast that she stopped interacting with the matter around her. She fell through the roof, four floors of faux office building, and landed as she stopped vibrating her feet for a moment, before leaping through the wall while vibrating to become intangible once more. Avery wasn’t exactly like any of the other Flash’s, they all had their unique foibles that made them who they were. She wasn’t able to vibrate through matter without interacting with it at all, the way Barry Allen could. She also wasn’t as bad at it as Wally West had been as a freshman, when he’d made things explode. No, for her, the only problem was that she had a tendency to scramble electronics when she passed through them.

Her timing had been spot-on. Victor Stone had been walking past that exact part of the alley when she’d jumped, and she’d gone right through his torso before she’d stopped vibrating and smacked into a cement wall. It was painful, but as she got up from the ground, she saw Vic was immobile, though clearly still awake. “My system’s rebooting,” he barely managed to say, considering most of his face was metal. “There’s no way I can keep fighting...I give up.” With that win in the bag, Avery zipped back to the entrance, trusting the teachers would help Vic out with his computer systems and whatnot. Tim’s eyes were on her once she got back, a mix of appreciation and condemnation written on his face.

Walking over to them from the seating area, Mr. Aizawa and Mr. Grayson didn’t look very happy with her either. “That was dangerously close to actually hurting Vic, Avery,” her homeroom teacher told her, his displeasure dripping from every syllable. “You’ve won that fight, but it doesn’t reflect very well on you.” Avery did not like hearing that, and she looked back at what she’d done with confusion. Vic was okay, right? Sure, she couldn’t have been 100% sure what that would have done to him, but the result was what mattered.

Unbidden, she remembered the notes she’d gotten from the first round. On the whole, she’d been complemented for making good use of her heavy-hitters, but she’d gotten some feedback about maybe waiting to throw herself in the ring until later on, and that sending out Cassandra while her opponent still had long-range fighters available hadn’t been a smart move. Almost out of spite, Avery had made sure to go first again, and...she’d won, right? Trying not to let that weigh on her too much, she listened as Tim’s choice for the second fight was Changeling, and she could guess why. Avery knew Gar was a great all-around fighter, his animal shapeshifting abilities giving him the variety to face down opponents that would seem to be way outside his weight-class and still take them out. Of course, Avery had someone like that on her team too.

“I’ll send out Traci Thirteen.” Avery had every confidence that her resident witch could take out the green geek without much of a problem...up until Tim revealed where they’d be fighting: in a lake. Sure, there was a boat on it for Traci to stand on, but Avery’s confidence started to falter as she and Tim sat to watch the fight play out. Traci did some cool looking spell slinging, but when a green giant squid started pulling the boat under and quickly collected her into one of his tentacles, the fight was called, in Tim’s favor. It was her turn to choose first again, and she had the name out of her mouth the second she was asked. “Orphan’s next.” Avery had a tendency to jump to a decision quickly, go with it, and then stand back to see how it played out.

Tim Drake, on the other hand, was pretty different. The brainy guy liked to think through everything from every angle before coming to a decision, and even then, he always looked like he was still thinking the problem over, despite the fact he couldn’t change his choice. So, after a bit of ruminating, Tim had chosen to fight Goth with Goth. “Raven.” After idly choosing the fight’s location as the inside of a factory, Avery was confident Cass had this in the bag. Sure, she was more of a hand to hand fighter, but she could usually deal with just about anyone, elemental princes not-withstanding. But the low lighting of the factor proved to be to Raven’s advantage, and with levitation, telekinesis, and other magic, she was able to bind Cassandra with steel cables when the martial artist least expected it, and the fight was called without Orphan getting to throw a single punch. For the final fight, Tim was actually pretty fast to answer, a smile on his face. “I trust Starfire.”

Oh, so he wanted to send out his heaviest hitter, huh? Well, two could play at that game. “She’s no match for Blue Beetle.” The battlefield was to be a particular section, a city on fire. She wasn’t sure if Tim thought Jaime’s scarab had a weakness to fire, or if he thought there was some other advantage to that landscape, but whatever, Avery knew her bug boy could take out the orange alien amazon, easily. What she’d failed to consider, in hindsight, was personality. Once the fight had begun, both competitors were in the air, and while Jaime was arguing with the scarab over what weapon to use, trying to ask what would hurt, but not really injure or kill, a Tamaranian, Starfire had flown closer with fists flying, hands surrounded in a green glow. Jaime, under all his armor and alien tech, was a pretty regular guy, and he had a soft heart. Koriand’r was a warrior. He tried to dodge and weave while looking for the right level of weaponry to use, something that would actually do anything against Starfire without disintegrating her, from what Avery could overhear through the fight audio, but his opponent was constantly closing the distance to wail on him, fire starbolts, throw cars, everything she could to win. With a palm on her face, Avery watched as Jaime was knocked hard enough to fly through the environment enclosure and land outside it, meaning he was out of bound, meaning he lost. Meaning Avery lost. Gritting her teeth, she shook Tim’s hand, anger and self-loathing starting to bubble up inside her.

* * *

From the second that the rules of this new round were announced, Katsuki Bakugo had been putting his mind to the task of how to beat that damn nerd. Opportunities for he and Deku to compete directly like this didn’t come up every day, and with all the teachers and students there, this was a chance to show everyone that he was the real #1 hero of Class 1-A! Of course, the thinking was more difficult when everyone sitting around Katsuki wouldn’t stop gabbering on during the fast girl and Robin’s fight, no matter how much he cursed at them to stop.

More irritating was that, whenever he looked over at Deku, his eyes were on the fights going on, but Katsuki knew him well enough to know he wasn’t just watching these fights, he was planning for his own at the same time. Pick one and do that, nerd! How was he supposed to succeed All Might if he couldn’t manage his time well?!

Finally, one of the Titans kids beat the other, and it was time for Deku and Katsuki to assemble before the teachers for their fight. Deku was going to pick first, and, with too much reluctance for Katsuki’s taste, said, “I’ll go first.” A brutal grin spread over Katsuki’s face: he’d guessed right on what Deku would do.

With all eyes on Katsuki, he knew everyone thought they knew who he was going to pick from his gang of losers, but they were wrong. “You’re fighting the grape one,” Katsuki pronounced, and like he’d guessed, no one had expected that, least of all Deku. Emotions flashed over his face: surprise, frustration, and pity for his opponent. Deku chose for the two of them to fight in a forest, the perfect place to use his Shoot Style, and Bakugo wasn’t surprised to watch Deku take out the brat wearing a diaper in no time at all.

Sure, he would have loved to kick Deku’s ass again, prove to him who was going to be the  **real** successor to All Might, the hero who would be an even better hero than he ever was, and this time rub it in the face of everyone in the class. But Katsuki wanted to  _ win _ . And no matter what he told himself, fighting Deku wouldn’t be a guaranteed win, especially if the nerd got to pick where they fought. Throwing the weakest person on his team meant Katsuki had lost the first fight, but it also meant that Deku had wasted his best fighter on a fight that meant nothing.

Once Deku got back from his quick fight, it was Katsuki’s turn. “I’m up next.” No one seem particularly astonished by that announcement, and he watched as Deku tried to think of who to throw at his rival. Uraraka would probably be a good choice, Katsuki had to admit, considering how close she’d come to beating him at the sports festival. Sure, he’d gotten stronger since then, but he’d seen the same was true for her as well. He’d probably still win, but it would be more challenging than the other options.

Of course, if Deku was playing the same game Katsuki was, he’d send out the girl with the weird ear lobes or the guy with all the arms. Neither would have any chance against Bakugo, but it would also free up Deku’s better fighters for the later rounds. After spending way too damn long thinking about it, the nerd finally gave his answer, “Okay then, you’ll be fighting Chargebolt.” The reply boggled Katsuki’s mind. The spiky haired moron was too strong to be a chump blocker, but too weak to actually stand a chance against Katsuki.

One look at the electric idiot’s face made it clear he was thinking the same thing, sweat starting to stream down one cheek. Aside from that, he was trying to look tough, but one glare from Katsuki ended that charade. Still, Katsuki got to choose the battlefield, and without hesitation he barked, “We’ll throw down on the mountain.” Then, Katsuki stalked off to where he’d picked, not giving his opponent a second thought. Before too long, both were facing each other, surrounded by rocky hills and boulders, and Eraserhead was explaining the rules to them, again. While that was happening, Bakugo was doing his best to build up a good sweat on his palms, and the second the fight started, he moved into a somersault, then let out a series of explosions that sent him up and away, spinning through the air towards Kaminari as he shouted, “ **Die!!** ”

As expected, Kaminari tried to move out of the way, despite the fact Katsuki was the best in their class at mid-air maneuverability, a mastery he’d been training for over years. But then, something seemed wrong, and Katsuki realized what it was: Kaminari didn’t look scared. He actually looked confident, prepared, and Katsuki realized that perhaps he hadn’t played Deku as well as he’d thought he did. “1,000,000 Volt Barrage!” the blond teen shouted, and let loose with an electrical blast that went out in every direction. With no teammates in this fight, he didn’t have to worry about collateral damage, and Katsuki may have been fast, but he wasn’t faster than rampaging electrons.

The zap hit him mid-flight, and it  _ hurt _ . Katsuki had been hit by the electromagnetic loser a few times before, but he’d clearly been training his Quirk since then. Still, Katsuki knew he could fight through it, and was ready to change direction with a few blasts, tackle Kaminari to the ground, and end this fight. But that didn’t happen. Fear actually started to invade Katsuki’s mind as he realized he couldn't set off his blasts. No, scratch that, he couldn’t move any muscles, period. Without the ability to keep himself in the air, Katsuki hit the ground like a sack of bricks, actually skipping across it for a few feet before setting into a scrapped up, immoving lump. Inside, he was raging.

Of  **course** that damn nerd would come up with some way for a nobody like Kaminari to be able to fight Katsuki! He was so damn stupid for not realizing this could have happened! Electricity was what powered muscles, and high amounts of it can cramp up or lock them. Kasuki  **knew** that! But he’d still fallen right into Deku’s trap! It was that thought, repeated over and over in his head, that made sure Katsuki wasn’t just going to give up, let this fight be called. With every ounce of willpower he had, he struggled against his body, trying to get it to move...until it finally did.

Katsuki had no clue if he’d been on the ground for a few seconds or if he’d been lying there for an hour. All he knew was that eventually, he was able to pick himself up and glare at the person who’d done this to him, now reduced to an unintelligible dolt thanks to how much of his Quirk he’d used, unable to fight. Since both fighters had been taken out at the same time, the teachers were probably waiting to see which would come to first. Sure enough, Nightwing announced, “Alright, Bakugo’s up! He gets the win!” Grabbing the completely out of it moron by his costume’s collar, Katsuki dragged him back to the sitting area. Katsuki was tense. He and Deku each had a win, and their match could still go either way. “So, Midoriya, who did you want to go next?”

The grinning teacher’s question got a quick, surprisingly confident answer from Deku. “Uravity.” Of course he’d choose the bottom-heavy brawler, Katsuki mused. Considering who he had left to use, it would be hard to find anyone who’d stand a chance against her. Of course, that wasn’t to say there was no one on this stupid team Katsuki could count on.

Looking down at the heroine in a green costume, all Katsuki had to say was, “Frog Girl, you’re up.” Since the moment he’d been forced to try and make something out of the classmates he’d been given, Katsuki had to admit that Asui was easily the most competent one among them. She took things seriously, and was the only one willing to push back against Katsuki without being scared of what he’d say back. Unofficially, he thought of her as his second-in-command, and if anyone could take on the gravity manipulator, it was her.

That’s when Katsuki remembered Deku still had to pick where they’d be fighting, and to his surprise and annoyance, the nerd looked conflicted about what he was about to do. That’s one of the things that bothered him so much: Deku was too wishy-washy. Either do something or don’t, there was no point in doing something and feeling bad about it. Finally, he said, “They’ll fight in the tundra.” Oh yeah, one of the new environments they’d made when they rebuilt the USJ after the villain attack, Katsuki mused. What Deku had said got some shocked gasps from a few other people in Class 1-A, but Katsuki didn’t get what the big deal was.

That was, until the fight started. At first, things were looking pretty even, with Asui being more mobile, and Uraraka able to follow her and send projectiles out using her Quirk. But the more they fought, the slower the frog girl was getting, and the more that Uraraka was able to catch up to her. Suddenly, just as Asui almost looked like she was about to fall asleep, did Katsuki realize the problem: her Quirk! Frogs didn’t do well in cold environments, and Deku had chosen the coldest one he could. Katsuki grit his teeth as he watched Uraraka subdue his fighter and win the fight, both furious that he’d been played like this, and grudgingly appreciating the fact Deku, of all people, had set something like that up against his friend.

Still, this last fight got to start with his choice, and it didn’t take a lot of thought to throw in the pink acid girl. She was too hesitant to use her Quirk on people for Katsuki’s taste, but she was still pretty damn effective in a fight, even if she was annoying. Plus, the only other option was the invisible one, and as much help as she’d been during Investigation Exercise, she wouldn’t be winning a fight against either of the people Deku had left to use. The nerd went with the punk rock girl, so Katsuki chose the fight location as a factory. Moving over to sit down in the seats, Katsuki was forced to think over the situation he was in. If acid girl lost her fight, then it was over, and Katsuki just flat out lost. But even if she won, then it would go to the teachers to decide, and he’d never been great at figuring out what they wanted from him.

The two fought in the factory like a game of cat and mouse, the earphone jack girl always on the move and using her Quirk to stay appraised on where her enemy was. Of course, one of the reasons Katsuki had been so confident sending acid girl into this fight was her mobility. Not only could she easily eat through factory walls and floors, but she could use her acid to basically skate on the ground, making her faster than most other people. Once she was cornered, Deku’s fighter tried using some sort of sonic attack, but a quick splash of acid on the speakers in her costume rendered that less effective, and the fight was called in the pink girl’s favor once her opponent had given up.

Soon, everyone was back in the seating area, their eyes on the teachers, who were all seated in front. They were talking over the various fights in hushed whispers, and Katsuki was so tense his fists were clenched hard enough to draw blood from his palms. After almost ten minutes of deliberating, Eraserhead and Nightwing addressed that class. “Looking at all four fights, we want to commend Bakugo for his strategic thinking, and his ability to look past his own pride to what would work better for himself and his team,” Eraserhead started.

For a moment, Katsuki let himself dream that they were about to announce him as the winner. But instead, Nightwing finished off by saying, “However, while it makes sense in terms of game logic, in the field sending your weakest teammate to lose against a strong opponent is a bad idea, both for that teammate and the innocent people they’re supposed to protect. This isn’t just about winning, it’s about applying your mind to your future as a pro hero. Comparatively. Midoriya made smarter choices, especially in terms of environments. He’ll be the one moving onto the final round.”

Katsuki knew they said stuff after that, something about when and where and how the finals of this stupid little tournament would happen. But he didn’t remember any of that. He didn’t remember bussing back to school. He didn’t remember M’gann trying to comfort him only to be rebuffed completely. The only important thing was that he’d lost. Now, the only times he’d beaten Deku were indirectly during the Sports Festival, and in an unofficial street match. As far as the teachers or anyone in either class knew, Deku was his better. Katsuki had lost, and that was all he could think about.


	18. Chapter 14-Tea and Beds

Though he hadn’t needed to go and see Recovery Girl, Denki Kaminari still had a rough morning on the day after the second round of the Joint Combat Exercise. Bakugo hadn’t laid a finger on him, but Denki had released a ridiculous amount of electricity in an attempt to preemptively take out the explosive jerk. It hadn’t worked, and now Denki was shambling around the kitchen area of the dorm, clutching his head in pain. Black tea always helped after he’d overloaded himself like this, and luckily for him, no one else was up this early on a Sunday morning.

“Friend Kaminari!” The excited, high-pitched voice of Starfire right behind him almost made Denki spill the tea he’d been pouring himself. After the rush of fear and surprise finished, he turned around to see the Tamaranian princess looking at him, clearly in a great mood. Oh, and she looked super cute too, wearing an oversized Titans Academy sweatshirt and sweatpants. Of course, Denki thought she always looked cute. “I am glad to see you are awake! How are you feeling after your fight yesterday?”

As happy as Denki was to see her, the volume she was speaking at was making his headache throb, so he made a motion in his empty hand to signify the lowering of a gauge and whispered, “Could you lower the volume a little, Starfire? I’ve got a bit of a migraine.” She nodded fervently, and together they walked over to sit on the dorm couch, a few feet away from each other. Deciding to start with what he’d just told her, Denki explained, “Yeah, so, you know how I get all goofy when I use too much of my Quirk?”

Her immediate reaction was to giggle while nodding, making Denki’s heart flutter. “Oh yes! It is quite humorous.” But then Starfire looked confused, rubbing one hand behind an ear in what he’d learned was a sign of thinking deeply in her people. “But does that condition only affect you for a short period of time? You do not seem to be any more intellectually challenged than normal this morning.”

Deciding not to take that as an insult, Denki gave her a nod and continued what he’d been saying. “Yeah, it is pretty short term. Any time I go over my basic limit, my brain gets fried and has to put thinking on the backburner so it can fix itself. But that’s a simple overcharge. When I go even farther past my limits, like I did against Bakugo yesterday, I end up with a killer migraine. It’s like...I bruised my brain, almost. I’ve been getting them a lot lately, thanks to Deku’s training.” It wasn’t like Denki was going to complain. Deku was a pretty killer team leader, and he was making bigger strides with his Quirk with the cheerful nerd’s help than he usually did on his own, that was for sure. But progress had its payments. Shifting the subject, Denki asked, “How are you feeling after your fight?”

Before she started answering verbally, Starfire held up one fist, and Denki could see she’d bruised her knuckles pretty bad. With her Tamarianian orange skin tone, bruising looked more colorful, a deeper, darker hue closer to brown that gave the damage almost a sunset complexion. “Friend Jaime’s armor is quite strong.” Then, with nothing resembling the human custom of modesty, Starfire casually raised up her sweatshirt, giving Denki a look at her midriff so open that he could almost get a glimpse of something else just out of sight. Similar sunset bruises barred her skin in a strip just above her waist. “I am unsure if you saw during the display of our battle, but Jaime was able to use a protonic wave shifter on my abdomen shortly before my victory.”

Luckily for Denki’s hormones, Starfire dropped her sweatshirt again just as easily as she’d raised it, and he tried to focus on what she’d been trying to show him rather than what he’d actually been looking at. “Whoa, that’s crazy! Are you going to be okay?” In his time so far at UA, Denki had seen a  **lot** of injuries, but that bruise had looked particularly nasty. Not as awful as anything Deku had got back when he’d been breaking limbs all the time, but not pretty either.

That must have been a weird question to ask, because Starfire did that thing where she looked at him like he was the one not native to this planet. “It is a mild injury, and Tamaranians have a fast recovery process.” Then, right there, she did that thing that had been bothering Denki for a while. Whenever she said anything, or he said anything, that had to do with her people, a weird kind of sadness appeared in her eyes, the saddest look he’d seen on her. A few days before, he’d thought it was homesickness, but he was starting to think that wasn’t the case.

Trying to be tactful (as much as Denki knew how to), he hesitantly asked, “Hey, Star, you know you can trust me, right? You get really down anytime Tamaran or Tamaranians come up. If you don’t want to talk about it, that’s cool, and I’ll try to stop mentioning them. But...” Unsure how to finish the thought, Denki just let it dangle out there.

Looking much more serious that he usually saw her, Starfire met his eyes. “It is...hard to think of my home. Or my people. Did you know that I am a Princess, Friend Kaminari?” Denki nodded. After all, it was part of her appeal, for him at least. Though he did sometimes wonder about how exactly an alien species developed monarchy similar to Earth’s. “I did not come to Earth of my own choice. My people were at war, and losing. In order to secure peace, my parents had to make concessions, including me. I was given to the victors as a slave, and when they were done...using me...I was traded to others. From hand to hand I was given, until I ended up in the hands of the Dominators.” As Starfire talked, her posture became more guarded, until her hands were digging into her legs as her muscles tensed with every word. “They experimented on me. My Star Blasts are not an ability Tamaranians normally possess. It is a side effect of how they tampered with my genetics, against my will. I was able to escape, and flee to the nearby planet, Earth. Heroes protected me against my captors, and...that is why I am here.”

Denki felt like a real jerk for asking for an explanation now. Starfire had clearly been through hell and back, and he couldn’t tell which was the worst part of it: the experimentation, the slavery, or the fact her parents had handed her into all of it. But that made Denki think of something, and quickly asked, “Well, since you’re free now, can’t you go back to Tamaran?”

Rather than bringing any comfort, Denki’s words only seemed to make her sadder. “I cannot. The treaty that made me a slave also removed me from the royal family, and exiled me from the planet on pain of death. I have...sent missives to my family, in the ways I can. There have been no replies.”

Unable to think of anything else, Denki put a hand on Starfire’s shoulder. She wasn’t crying, but it was clear this topic was pretty damn heavy for her. He racked his brain to try and think of something he could do to help, when he suddenly had an idea. “Hey, Star, what if I took you out today? We could see a movie, get lunch, whatever you want to do!”

His words had seemed to lift away some of her sadness, but it was mostly replaced with confusion. “My apologies if I am misunderstanding Earth customs, Friend Kaminari, but what you are describing sounds very much like a ‘date’.” Coming from someone else, that might have been a joke, but with Starfire, she meant every word.

Feeling like he’d been caught in a trap, Denki laughed awkwardly and said, “Well, uh, yeah, kinda. I mean, you’re hot, and I kind of like you, so I thought it would be a fun way to spend a Sunday.” Saying those words, Denki couldn’t bring himself to look at Starfire, instead gazing at the dorm television, which was powered off. “Plus, we’ve gone out together a bunch of times as friends, right? This wouldn’t be too different.”

After so long without a reply, Denki had to face facts and actually look at the girl he’d just asked out. She didn’t look mad at him, but that actually might have been better for Denki’s self-confidence. Instead, the best word he had for the look in her eyes was ‘pity’. “I apologize, Friend Kaminari, but I do not see you in that way and do not wish to court you. There is...someone else for whom my heart belongs.” Denki didn’t press her for details, and knew he’d just need to accept they’d be friends. Still, they did go out on the town that day, bringing Jirou and Changeling with them. None of them brought up the fact their teams were due to fight in the final round, only eight days from then.

* * *

Even if she didn’t necessarily see it as a real character flaw, Raven Roth knew that she was not a ‘people person’. Part of that was her natural introversion, the fact she’d much rather spend time in her room, studying or reading for pleasure, than going out to spend time with other people. Part of that was how closely her powers were tied to her emotions, which meant frequent meditation and perfect control was a big part of her life. Part of that was how closely she guarded her secrets, how very few people she was okay with even temporarily invading her privacy.

For all those reasons, and more, she believed she had every right to be at least a little upset at her assigned partner for this trip, Ochaco Uraraka. But after two days of the girl being nervous whenever they were in the same room, jumping at any loud sound, and refusing to meet Raven’s eyes, she decided to finally just take Garfield’s advise and talk to her. That was why, just after sunset, Raven was prepared for the knock on her door. Opening it revealed a mouselike Uraraka, looking like she might bolt if Raven glared at her too hard. “You got my note. Come in.” Walking over to her desk to sit there, Raven watched as Uraraka sat on the bed after closing the door behind her.

Before Raven could even start saying what she wanted to, the gravity altering teen bowed her head and started apologizing. “I’m so sorry! I totally overstepped your boundaries, and I should have just talked to a teacher, and I understand if you don’t want to spend any time together until you have to leave!”

If Raven hadn’t held up a hand to stop her, she was pretty sure Uraraka would have just kept going. Choosing her words carefully, Raven gave her reply. “Thank you for the apology. You’re right, talking to Nightwing would have been a better idea. And coming into my room without asking me made me upset.” Then, after taking a brief pause, she added, “That said, I’m not upset anymore. I understand you did what you did out of concern, not curiosity.”

Suddenly looking a lot more relaxed, Uraraka let out a happy sight and flopped backwards on Raven’s black bedsheets. “That’s good to know,” she said, and Raven could feel how much she meant that feeling with her empathic abilities. Then, she sat up again, looking serious. “Are there any other things I should know about, so I don’t make you upset later on?”

The teenage girl asked the question like a martial artist asking who they were going to fight next, ready for a challenge. It was comical, and if Raven didn’t have to worry about the effects it would have with her magic, she would have laughed. “I was actually getting to that. A friend of mine pointed out that, since this trip is probably the last time I’ll see you, it would be okay to be a little more open.” A lot of people called Garfield stupid, but especially with interpersonal relations, he was smarter than most. “Why did you become a hero, Uraraka?”

Looking a little embarrassed, Uraraka ran a hand through her brown hair and explained, “Well, my family works really hard just to get by, so initially I wanted to be a hero so I could make enough money to make sure they didn’t have to worry anymore.” Quite a few of Raven’s classmates had similar motivations, and while some saw them as selfish,Raven respected it as much as any other reason to be a hero. “But that was just at first. Recently, I was involved in some serious hero work, and a lot of people were injured...some of them died. It made me want to be better, so I could make sure nothing that bad happened again.”

Having seen quite a lot of action herself, Raven understood what she meant all too well. Once she was sure Uraraka had finished, Raven asked her a question. “Do you know where my magic comes from?” The Japanese girl shook her head, so Raven prepared herself for a long explanation. “My mother was lured into joining a cult, when she was a young woman. She was chosen by them, for a special ritual. After being summoned briefly into this plane of existence, my father assaulted my mother, sexually. That’s how I was conceived. My father is a demon, named Trigon the Terrible.”

Uraraka’s hands went to her mouth, and tears stood out in her eyes. In a way, Raven envied her for that. Were it not for her powers, she would have the liberty to cry about this as well. Instead, she stoically continued her monologue. “My mother joined a monastery after that, and I was raised to control my emotions, and with them, my magic. But there is a reason I was born.” Goosebumps began standing out on Raven’s pale flesh as she spoke. “Every prophecy regarding my father makes it clear that he can only enter our world, and begin his conquest, with my help. I’m part him, and part mortal, the bridge he needs to cross over. So I became a hero, so I can try and become strong enough to stop that from happening...and make up for the damage I could cause if that does occur. The ritual you saw me performing was something I need to do at least once a month, to ward myself against my father’s corruption.”

Having said all she needed to say, Raven just felt...tired. The struggle she went through felt like it was never going to end, and intellectually knew it probably wouldn’t. Still giving up wouldn’t, couldn’t, be an option. “Could...I give you a hug?” Uraraka offered, knocking Raven out of her train of thought. Looking at her, the young heroine was staring at Raven with naked empathy and compassion.

Actually feeling a little embarrassed, Raven let out a small huff. “If you want to.” She didn’t add what she’d been thinking, which was, ‘At least unlike Starfire, you ask first.’ Soon, the other girl had wrapped her arms around Raven, and she was tempted to tear down her walls for a second and just...let it all out. But she knew that would probably destroy the room, and possibly hurt Uraraka, so she focused on just enjoying the hug. “Thank you,” Raven whispered, “for listening.”


	19. Chapter 15-Hearts and Minds

Even though his class was full of nice, friendly people, not a lot of people took the time to know Koji Koda. He didn’t really blame them for that, though. After all, it wasn’t like he stuck out. Aside from his very non-standard appearance, Koji tended to fade into the background. He didn’t have a flashy Quirk, and he avoided talking whenever he could. He’d gotten a little better about that even since Jiro had started helping him with opening up a little more, but even now that he could talk with his classmates, that didn’t mean they were suddenly interested in asking about his personal life. The most attention he’d ever had was when they found out he kept a bunny in his room. 

That’s part of what made this whole school exchange thing so weird. All of a sudden, he had someone assigned to spend time with him. Koji wouldn’t necessarily have hated that, but Karen Beecher was not the type to be a quiet presence in her month in Japan. Karen was many things: intelligent, driven, stubborn, and caring. Low-key was none of them. Nearly every day, she had Koji training, either focusing on helping her or him. With the latter, it mostly seemed to be because she was infuriated with how he struggled to make his Quirk stand out.

It was Monday, but since they’d had the combat field trip on Saturday, they had the morning off of classes. Without any plans to do anything with that time, Karen had agreed that an actual break would probably be a good idea, so they spend it on the school grounds. One of the things Koji loved most about UA was how it was connected more to the rural rolling hills than the city, which gave him a lot of animals to talk to.

It was something Koji struggled to make other people understand. It wasn’t like his Quirk allowed him to control the minds of animals, and even if it did, he wouldn’t want to. But saying he ‘talked’ to animals also always felt a little off. After all, most animals weren’t sapient, they couldn’t really communicate in a way that made sense to people. What Koji got from them was more...simple? That’s part of what he liked about them, though. Similarly, part of making his Quirk work was translating the complex things he needed into things the animals could understand, which meant knowing the animals.

Karen was sitting on a nearby bench as Koji had a squirrel on his lap, squeaking at him. Of all the local fauna, squirrels were probably the most social, which meant they were always excited to try and communicate with Koji. This one was happily sharing recent tree climbing exploits when Koji heard someone approach Karen, but didn’t turn around to look. “Hey, Karen.” It was the baritone rumble of Mal, the guy Karen had a crush on, and that made sure there was no way Koji was going to look at what was going on. Nope. He was just going to play with the squirrel and pretend he didn’t exist.

“Hey Mal,” was Karen’s response, and from just the tone, Koji could imagine what exactly she was doing. Namely, not looking at Mal when she talked, with an expression that made it clear he was starting this conversation on the defensive. Koji knew why though, as she’d shared it with him not long after they’d been partnered up: she liked Mal, she was pretty sure he liked her, but she was infuriated that he’d yet to do anything about it.

It was weird, because Koji thought that, if she wanted to be with him, she could just ask him out herself, but he hadn’t actually said that out loud. That would have required much more social fortitude than Koji had. Apparently, Mal was just as confused by why she was not too happy to see him, and Koji’s sharp ears could pick up the sound of Mal running a hand through his short hair. “Karen, there was something I’ve been wanting to ask you. After school today, would you want to go out with me?”

His question came with a lot of hesitation and uncertainty, like he expected Karen to bite his head off for an incorrectly pronounced syllable. There was a bit of a pause before she gave her answer, and before she said a word she let out a huff of air. “Finally. Yes, let’s do that. Where did you want to go?” There was relief and excitement buried under her annoyance, and Koji smiled, certain that Mal was happy to hear that answer.

“Oh, uh,” Mal started, sounding like he hadn’t expected to get this far. “I’m not sure. Where would you want to go?” He was sounding a little more confident, which Koji felt bad about, since he knew Mal had just said the wrong thing. He scratched the underside of a brown squirrel on his lap’s chin, ready for Karen’s response.

But instead of a sharp, barbed comment like Koji was expecting, Karen just let out a sigh. “Mal, I was asking where  _ you _ wanted to go. But...since you asked, I heard there’s a great amusement park an hour or so away. Plus, with your Quirk, we could get back pretty fast.” She was actually sounding really happy with how things were going, and while that surprised Koji, it also gladdened him as well.

Sounding a little apprehensive, Mal replied, “What about the buddy system?” Karen had a rebuttal ready for that, but by this point, Koji had tuned out the conversation. Maybe, he pondered, if the date went well, Karen wouldn’t be as eager to make him train. What he hadn’t expected was that, after a very successful date, in much higher spirits, she actually made him train  _ more _ .

* * *

After classes ended for the day, M’gann M’orzz waited outside a door for nearly half an hour before she got up the nerve to knock on it. Seconds after she had, it opened up just enough for the occupant to see outside, and when he saw it was her outside, Katsuki Bakugo growled, “Come in,” before retreating back inside. With permission seemingly granted, M’gann entered the room and shut the door behind her. Bakugo had already changed out of his school clothes, into a grey tank top and blue jeans. “What do you want?” he asked, though M’gann didn’t know why.

Ever since she’d been assigned him as her partner, Bakugo had been a fascinating mystery for M’gann. At first, he seemed just like a hothead, eager for violence and action, and not the best candidate for being a hero. But as she spent more time with him, she saw that he was smart, probably one of the smartest students in his class. She’d seen moments where he showed how much he cared about certain other people, including people she’d thought he hated. But it was hard to even see that depth, with how antisocial and private he was. She’d respected his stance on her telepathy since the beginning: no getting into his head.

But things had changed. A few days ago, he’d lost, despite doing his best, and it seemed like it  _ broke  _ him. She’d barely seen him since then, and when she did, Bakugo tried to keep the interactions as brief as possible. Standing up to other people wasn’t easy for M’gann, but this seemed like a crisis. If she was being honest, part of why she wanted to do this also came from the fact that, as far as she could tell, Bakugo actually  _ respected _ her. Few people did that, and from Bakugo of all people, that meaned something. Meeting his harsh gaze, M’gann told him, “I know you’ve been struggling with something, for a long time. I know it got worse when you lost to Midoriya. I want to help. I know you said you didn’t want me to look into your mind, but you  _ need _ help. I can restrict myself however much you need, but telepathic therapy is the a great way to-”

Before she could finish trying to sell him on the idea, Bakugo barked, “I’ll do it.” Stunned, M’gann just stared at him as he added a few conditions. “You’re only going to look at my feelings, none of my memories.” It was a statement, not a request. “I get to see your feelings too. I’m not the only one dealing with stuff, and you can use my help just as much.” Rather than argue, which M’gann knew would be a fruitless endeavor, she told him to sit in a comfortable position, while she did the same, and then extended her mind.

It was impossible for a Martian to explain to a human what their telepathy really was, even if the human had some form of psychic powers themselves. It was an intrinsic part of who they were, green or white, like a human’s arm or leg. No, even that wasn’t quite right. Humans could lose their arms or legs, or be born without them. A Martian only lost their telepathy when they weren’t conscious, or when they were dead.

Connecting their minds together was simple, but setting up the necessary boundaries was more difficult. As Bakugo wanted, M’gann made sure each would only have access to the other’s emotions, not any memories. In order to properly work through it all, she set up a mental landscape for them, and suddenly they were there. She’d gone with a place that would be more familiar to Bakugo, to help him feel more comfortable, namely a UA classroom.

They were both there, still wearing the clothes they’d had on in the real world. Bakugo looked more calm than she’d ever seen before, and he looked at her blankly. “Why...do I feel like this?” He looked down at his body, as if only seeing it for the first time. “I’m not...mad. I’m not...happy. I just...am.”

Nodding, M’gann raised a hand. For someone doing this for the first time, she was aware it would feel more than a little disoriented, though M’gann was far more used to the serenity this mindstate provided than Bakugo would be. “I’ve separated our emotions from our mind, so they can be properly examined,” she explained, calmly. “That way, we can better understand them, and internalize them.” Too many humans saw their emotions as a part of their intrinsic sense of selves, rather than the bundle of chemical reactions they really were.

Holding up her hands, she created two floating orbs, one yellow, the other green. Then she floated the green orb over to Bakugo, while she laid one hand on the yellow orb. Suddenly, emotions that were not her own washed over her like a tidal wave. To her surprise, anger was not the first, or the largest, to jump out at her. It was shame. Shame, built on a bedrock of pride. Bakugo’s pride in himself, in his abilities, was so deep and so strong she was amazed at it. But it had cracks in it, flaws, and shame was pouring out through them. How could he be so strong, and keep losing? Why did he keep failing? She could feel all of that, and more. Self loathing. Fear. And yes, anger. But not directed outwardly, only inwardly.

Taking her hands off the orb, the feelings left her, leaving M’gann clear headed once more. Looking over at Bakugo, who was taking his hands off her orb a the same time, M’gann told him, “It’s okay to struggle. To fail. You’re doing your best. But if you want help, you only need to ask.” Her words came without compassion, as she too was empty of her emotions. Instead, they were simple pieces of advice.

Bakugo nodded, still looking oddly blank without his own emotions. “That’s true. M’gann, you need to talk to your team. You can’t blame yourself for everything that goes wrong. You need to stand up for yourself.” His advice came smoothly, and M’gann could only nod, accepting what he was saying as he had to her words. This done, M’gann concentrated, and slowly reintroduced their emotions back into themselves, and transitioned them from the mindscape back into the real world.

Once fully restored, M’gann felt...conflicted. Bakugo had been right, she knew she needed to stand up for herself. She and her team had gotten along at first, but that fell apart, piece by piece, until now none of them wanted to speak to her. It was part of why they struggled as a team now. The only way to fix it would be to stand up, be a leader, and talk to them. It would be hard...but she could do it.

Looking back over at Bakugo, she saw he was sweating, like he’d just been through a work-out. He was looking at her, and M’gann didn’t think she’d ever seen him look so...contemplative? “Your therapy isn’t crap,” he told her. “I meant what I said in there, too.” She nodded, but before she could say anything, Bakugo continued. “You were right, too. I...it’s been a long time since I’ve been that calm. While you’re here, we should do that more often. And once you’re gone...I’m probably gonna have to find an actual therapist.” Bakugo sounded like he hated every step of that process, but M’gann was so happy to hear him say all that that she rushed over to give him a hug. He grumbled a little about it, but didn’t forcibly remove her this time, so M’gann counted that as a win.


	20. Chapter 16-Calls and Help

Things still hadn’t really gone back to normal for Eijiro Kirishima. Ever since the second round of the combat test thing, his best friend, the explosive Bakugo, had been more surly than normal. Eijiro wasn’t 100% aware of all the history between his best friend and the nicest guy he knew, Midoriya, but the fact Bakugo had actually lost to the person who seemed to get under his skin more than anyone else hadn’t been good. He hadn’t answered any of Eijiro’s texts, and even though he was sure that Bakugo had been in his room all of Sunday, no matter how many times he came by to knock on the dorm door, there was never any response. Bakugo had seemed a little better in class on this particular day, but no more talkative to the person he was closest to in the class.

It wasn’t exactly like Eijiro was exactly up in the clouds either. He hadn’t even gotten to participate in the fight, since his team had lost in the first round, and it had been tough just sitting in the stands, waiting and watching other people do what he’d wanted to be doing. It had also hurt to see Jaime Reyes, his assigned partner and seemingly all around cool guy, lose his fight. That was why, right after class ended on this Tuesday in question, Eijiro went to go see Jaime at his dorm room, after first grabbing a quick snack from a vending machine.

Not always the one with the best manners, Eijiro just straight up opened the door and walked in without knocking first. He was lucky Jaime was fully dressed, but unlucky in that he was busy. Namely, he had a laptop open on his desk, and Eijiro quickly realized that Jaime wasn’t the only one with eyes on him. On the laptop screen were two teenagers who looked to be around their age, one a guy tall and built like Iida, if not a little wider and buffer, the other a girl slender with red hair and a freckled face. There was also the smiling face of a kid, probably ten or so, who Eijiro quickly realized was probably the younger sister Jaime had told him about. Feeling a little awkward, Eijiro waved a hand and said, in his best attempt at English, “Uh, [hello]?”

His pronunciation was probably weird, because both Jaime and the people on the video call with him started laughing. Jaime turned back to the screen and said something in English, but Eijiro’s English was pretty bad, enough that the only thing he really caught were the words [friend] and his own name. Then, his assigned partner turned to look at Eijiro and gestured to the figures on the screen. “Kirishima, these are my friends Paco and Brenda, and my little sister Milagro. You can wait in here if you want, I just want to finish talking to them.”

Feeling bad for interrupting, Eijiro nodded and told him it was fine, before sitting on the ground. Jaime went right back to speaking English, with a little bit of Spanish mixed in with it, or at least Eijiro thought that was true. Both languages were so foreign to Japan that Eijiro honestly had a lot of trouble distinguishing between the two of them. While the conversation went on, Eijiro pulled out his phone and checked his messages, but Bakugo still hadn’t replied. But when he looked up from the device, Jaime had closed the laptop, and was looking over at him, an eyebrow raised. “What’s up?”

Getting up from the floor, Eijiro offered Jaime a handshake that turned into a hug. It was so weird, Eijiro couldn’t help but think: his friend was probably one the leanest, thinnest guys he knew. But thanks to the Reach tech embedded in his spine, he might also be one the most powerful. When the armor was up and he was Blue Beetle, Eijiro wasn’t even sure if Bakugo, Midoriya, or Todoroki could go toe-to-toe with him, and they were 1-A’s powerhouses. But he was getting off-track, he’d thought of a question shortly after coming into the room. “I never asked, but how is your Japanese so good? You almost sound like you’ve been speaking it your whole life.” It wasn’t just Jaime either, all the American students spoke really good Japanese.

Tapping one finger to the side of his head, Jaime started to explain. “I wish I could say I’m that good at studying, but none of us had to really put any work into it. Telepaths like M’gann or her uncle the Martian Manhunter can basically transfer languages between people. The whole class had Japanese implanted in our heads from someone who had it as a first language. Well, except for Starfire and Orphan. Cass doesn’t even really know English, and Kori can permanently learn languages from oral contact with a native speaker.” When Eijiro took a moment to put together what that actually meant, and blanched once he did, Jaime laughed and nodded. “Yup, she can just kiss people to learn languages. Aliens, man.”

That brought up why Eijiro actually had wanted to talk to Jaime in the first place, but rather than jump topics just yet, he did have one last language question. “That’s crazy. So, are you guys also going to keep knowing Japanese and stuff?” If that was true, Eijiro wondered why telepaths didn’t offer the service more often.

But a shake of the head from Jaime gave a clue why. “No, it only lasts a few months, at most. Plus, they can only do it with people our age, since we have enough space in our head to stuff in a language without really messing anything up. They did the same thing with your class, who went to Manchester School for Gifted Youth, so they could know English.” Now that it had been brought up, Eijiro had to wonder how the other class was doing in America. He’d heard weird things about that school, where current and former members of the Hero team the X-Men taught the students. Like UA, they also only took students with Quirks, or as they called them on the East Coast of America, Mutants.

Once again realizing his head was getting off-track, Eijiro thumped himself lightly on the head. “I almost forgot! Dude, the reason I came here, I’ve been doing some research.” Then, leaning in closer, Eijiro whispered, “About  _ the Reach _ .” He knew he had to be careful. After all, from everything Jaime had told him, the aliens who were responsible for his powers were also planning Earth’s conquest, and had a watchful eye to make sure no one noticed what they were doing. He had to wonder what the aliens thought, when they rolled up to Earth and discovered most folks had superpowers now.

Suddenly looking a hell of a lot more serious, Jaime nodded, so Eijiro pulled out his phone, to show some of what his research had dug up. There wasn’t a lot about them online, but while other people didn’t expect it of him, Eijiro actually was a tenacious guy, ready and willing to dig as deep as he needed to find something of value. Ever since Jaime has shared his burden with him, Eijiro had done everything he could to reward that trust, by being helpful. They went over what he found together, and started planning out how they’d take down secret Reach installations, together.

* * *

While some of her teammates, especially Karen, were upset at the fact they’d been knocked out in the first round of the combat trainings, Antonia Monetti was far from it. Nia got a lot of flak from her classmates from the fact she was a lot less eager to get into fights, but she didn’t care about that. ( _ Yes she did. She hated what they whispered behind her back. She knew they were right. She was a coward. Why was she studying to be a hero? _ )

It was getting pretty late, close to sunset, and all of Nia’s friends were busy with other things. ( _ Lies. They hated her. They’d always hated her. They weren’t her friends. She had no friends. _ ) She was going to just study all evening, but a rumble from her stomach sent her out into the dorm, to grab something from the stomach. ( _ She was getting food? After already eating a salad for dinner? Looks like she was going to get fat now. Another reason for everyone to despise her. _ )

There was nothing in the dorm kitchen, though. At least, nothing healthy enough that Nia wanted to eat it. But remembering what Cassie had mentioned a few days ago, about the Class 1-A dorm’s kitchen having a ton of apple slices, provided by Yaoyarozu as a study snack. Tempted by the siren call of something sweet and tasty that wouldn’t make her hate herself ( _ more than she already did _ ), Nia left her class’s dorm to go to their partnered building.

Any hopes of minimizing personal interaction were dashed, as her own assigned partner, Hanta Sero, was already in the kitchen, and threw her an easy, toothy smile. “Oh, hey Nia? Heard about the apples, right? I’ll make you up a plate.” Unable to bring herself to do anything else, Nia nodded. “Want anything to dip it in? We’ve got caramel stuff, but some people wanted ranch, so we have that too.” Sero made clear his own thoughts on that idea with the expression on his face, almost enough to make Nia honestly laugh. ( _ Almost. _ )

Still, she faked a laugh that she thought looked convincing. ( _ It didn’t. Everyone saw how broken she was. They hated her. _ ) “I’ll just take it plain,” she told Sero, and he nodded. Soon, there was a plate of apple slices at a table, and Nia was sitting there, Sero still up and about in the kitchen. Feeling awkward, Nia hesitantly tried to start a conversation. “So, what’s up with you, Sero?” ( _ Stupid. She sounded stupid. _ )

His immediate response was just to shrug. “Just trying to make sense of this week’s math homework. Oh, and make sure I’m ready for the rescue test coming up. It’s probably what I’m best at as a hero, at least so far, so I don’t want to do bad if I can avoid it.” Nia nodded, but she didn’t know exactly what that entailed. Heroes in America didn’t study a lot about rescue, there were other professional people for that.

Giving her best ( _ fake _ ) smile, Nia told him, “That sounds interesting! I’m sure you’ll do well.” ( _ Of course, she was terrible at combat, terrible at investigating, she’d probably flunk rescue too. _ ) Then, she noticed Sero was looking at her weirdly, something he did on occasion, so she asked, “What’s up?”

Rubbing the back of his head, Sero looked embarrassed by whatever it was he was about to say. “I really hope I’m just overthinking things but...are you okay, Nia?” She froze. “I was talking to some of your friends, and we’re kind of worried about you. It’s clear you’re not sleeping well, but that’s not just it. Sometimes, when you don’t think anyone’s looking, you look really miserable.”

More than anything, Nia just wanted to give him false reassurance. Tell him that she was fine. ( _ She wasn’t. _ ) But instead, looking at the genuine empathy on his face, knowing ( _ hoping _ ) that he actually cared, Nia let the mask fall. The bright, happy Nia was replaced with the real her: on the verge of crying, exhausted beyond any repair sleep could offer. “I just...have a lot going on,” she admitted. “I haven’t seen a doctor about it, but I think I’m depressed.” She didn’t say what she also thought, that she probably had something anxiety related as well.

Instead of looking shocked, or upset, ( _ or like she was a pitiful disgusting waste of time _ ) Sero just nodded. “Yeah, that tracks. You should probably see someone about that, though. Both so you can know for sure, but also so you can get some treatment.” She was about to tell him that there was no way anything could actually help what was wrong with her, when he continued, “More than a few of my classmates are taking antidepressants, antianxiety medication, some of them more serious stuff.” He didn’t name names, probably to protect their privacy, but it still blew her mind.

Who? How? No one in Class 1-A looked like they were like her ( _ broken inside _ ) ( _ irreparable _ ). “What if it doesn’t work?” was all Nia could whisper, wishing she could cry but no tears coming ( _ they’d run out a long time ago _ ) ( _ tears meant release, she didn’t get that comfort _ ). Instead, Nia wrapped her arms around her shoulders, her body suddenly tense. “What if it doesn’t work, and it turns out I’m right, and this is just how I’m going to be, for the rest of my life?”

Sero just shrugged. “What if it  **does** help? Shouldn’t you try it?” Nia...didn’t have a good rebuttal to that. Then, he went further. “If you want, I can go with you, to Recovery Girl after class is over, tomorrow. If that would make you feel better.” It did. Nia nodded, and the tentative plan was made. Her doubts still whispered that it would be pointless, just wasted effort, but she felt compelled to try anyway...


	21. Chapter 17-Cassandra and Cassandra

Regardless of what anyone else in her class thought about it all, Mina Ashido was  _ loving _ this school exchange thing. It was so cool getting to learn stuff from other teachers, but even better was all the new classmates! Of course, she’d lucked out with her partner, Cassandra Sandsmark, who preferred to be called Cassie. Not only was she really pretty, with long blonde hair combined with a mediterranean complexion, but she was super nice too! The two had bonded a lot in just the two and a half weeks they’d gotten to spend together so far, and whenever Mina thought about the fact that Cassie was going to be heading back to America in just a week, she couldn’t help feeling sad.

But Mina was nothing if not a perky optimist, so it was hard for that frown to stick with her. It was Wednesday morning, and like every weekday morning lately, she was heading to Cassie’s dorm to hang out before class and head to their homerooms together. Usually, Mina was the type to want to sleep in, but she was always too excited at the prospect of hanging out more with her new best friend to snooze away the hours. Already dressed in the UA school uniform, Mina reached Cassie’s door and knocked. It was only then that she heard Cassie talking on the other side of the door, what she was saying inaudibly muffled by the door between them.

Mina actually considered taking five to give Cassie some space, but before she could the door opened and she saw Cassie, still wearing her PJ’s (which were Wonder Woman themed, so cute), with her cellphone held up to her hand. She looked at Mina with a look that said, ‘I’m so sorry, just give me a minute,’ while her actual mouth said, “No, I can’t just go to Canada right now.” Then, after the person on the other end clearly must have said something, Cassie added, “Because I’m at school!”

Feeling suddenly awkward to be in the room while this was going on, Mina moved over to sit on Cassie’s bed, and followed what Cassie had done, by inaudibly mouthing her question. ‘Family trouble?’ The meaning must have come across correctly, because while Cassie was listening more to whoever was on the phone with her, her eyes were on Mina while she nodded her head.

As fun as Cassie was, it had become pretty damn clear to Mina that she had a rough time with her family. The only one she talked about with anything like unconditional love was her mom, who was as Quirkless as Cassie herself. But thanks to who her biological father was, Cassie also had a really complicated other side to her family, and they were all mythological figures. Mina had met a few of them, as they seemed to visit their mortal sister with no regard to her personal privacy. They hadn’t seemed awful, necessarily, and it was clear Cassie did still care for them, but they were also a source of stress for her. Mina didn’t know all the details there, but she knew enough people, at school with her now and back in middle school, with difficult home lives that she’d learned not to pry unless offered consent.

Apparently, whoever was on the phone with Cassie had been going on one hell of a rant, because it was nearly two minutes later when Cassie finally got to get a word in. “Okay, I get it, it’s important, but I still can’t drop everything to do this. Either find another Hero to help, or accept that I won’t be able to get around to it until December.” There was a short pause, and then Cassie forcefully said, “Okay, thanks. Love you, bye.” From the finality of her tone, it seemed to Mina that was Cassie ending a conversation before the other person was ready. After letting out a long sigh, Cassie focused on Mina again and fell dramatically onto her bed, face first, behind Mina. “I hate everything.”

“Even me?” Mina asked, giving her friend an overly exaggerated pouting face, her eyes on the verge of tears. Cassie only growled in response, which Mina’s brain translated as, ‘No, I don’t hate you, just everything else.’ Putting away the overdramatics for a second, Mina genuinely asked, “Do you want to talk to me about it?”

At first, all Cassie did was groan into her comforter, but then she got up and moved into her room’s bathroom, and Mina realized she was starting her morning routine. “That was my brother, Hermes.” He had yet to visit while Cassie and Mina were hanging out together, but Mina had done a little digging into Greek Mythology lately, and so knew she was talking about another of Zeus’s kids, the God of Messengers, Tricksters, and about two dozen other things. “Apparently, someone stole some ancient thing my Dad had lying around in a vault somewhere, and they decided to foist the task of getting it back to me.” Then, after a short pause, she added, “Can you throw my school clothes into the bathroom? They’re sitting on my dresser.”

Nodding, Mina grabbed the described stack of garments and tossed them into the bathroom, where they landed on the counter. That done, Cassie closed the door most of the way, leaving it cracked so they could still talk while she got dressed. “That’s pretty crazy. But, why do you have to do something about it? I mean, they’re all Gods, right? Can’t Zeus just pummel the person with lightning bolts? Or Hermes use his super-speed?” After all, humans beings with Quirks were one thing, but Mina had actually been in a room with some of these Gods. They could say what they wanted about them as relatives, but in terms of power, just their presence made it clear to Mina how far apart they were from humanity. The fact that Cassie’s mom had actually slept with one was crazy.

Towards Mina’s question, Cassie made a sound in the other room that sounded like the grunt of frustration of someone being asked a question they’d heard a lot. “Apparently, my family shouldn’t even be around anymore. They’re something called the Second World, and now is the age of the Fourth World, whatever that means. Or maybe it’s the Fifth World now? I’ve got no clue. But it means that all the old pantheons are supposed to either be dead or laying low. So if they have to act, they need to do so through mortal agents. Heroes. The Gods can give gifts or play the odds against a Hero, but they can’t directly intervene. The closest to that is sending monsters to fight the Heroes.”

“Alright,” Mina said, taking the words in and trying to make her still not totally awake brain digest all of them. “So what you’re saying is, your family can’t do anything about this, you have to?” It didn’t seem right to her. “That  _ sucks _ .”

A bark of laughter came from the bathroom, and Cassie exited back into her main bedroom, dressed and ready for school. They still had like ten minutes before they had to leave, so Cassie sat next to Mina on the bed, and they continued the conversation. “That’s not exactly right. There are other Heroes with blood ties to the Olympians, I’m just the current favorite. But I ended up agreeing to it, so I’ll be spending part of my Winter break on another quest.” When Mina made a face at that, Cassie tried to spin it. “Don’t worry, I’m pretty used to this stuff. And...it’s better than the alternative.”

That made Mina raise a purple eyebrow. “What’s the alternative?"

Cassie flinched, and though she looked like she didn’t want to talk about this particular part of her past, she also looked like she accepted it as an inevitability. “Not all of us Demigods are Heroes, you know. We have a choice. I didn’t decide to be one until I was 11. But before that, I was slotted into another role. If we’re not Heroes, we’re another thing to be taken by others. A piece in the political game between Gods, to be ransomed off or rescued. I’d been kidnapped fifteen times before I finally decided to become a Hero.”

All of that left a bad taste in Mina’s mouth. Sure, she’d been born with a cool Quirk, but becoming a hero had been  _ her _ choice, not anyone else’s. She’d done it for her own reasons, out of a personal drive to better herself. But for Cassie, it sounded like it was a choice between doing that or being a damsel in distress. “What finally changed your mind?” she asked Cassie, hesitantly.

But to her surprise, the question brought a smile to Cassie’s face. “When I was 11, I was kidnapped by a cult worshipping the Titans, hoping to get them freed. All the other times I’d been saved, I’d barely gotten to know the Heroes who’d helped me. To them, I wasn’t family, I was just something that had to be returned to where it should have been. But that time...Wonder Woman came to help. She didn’t just fight off the cult and save me. She talked to me. The entire trip home, she treated me like a person, and I got to know her a little just as she got to know me. She’s why I’m a Hero. I want to do for others, what she did for me.” When Cassie turned to see Mina, she was surprised to see the pink girl was crying like a fire hose. Smiling, she rose from the bed. “Dry your eyes, we’ve got class. Let’s go be Heroes.”

But just as Cassie was walking away, Mina reached out and grabbed the back of her shirt, stopping her. She turned to look at Mina, whose tears had slowed to a slow trickle down her face. “We can use Mal’s teleportation Quirk to meet up in December,” she told Cassie who was stunned to hear it. “I want to go with you, on your quest. Let’s go be Heroes together.”

* * *

After classes were over for the day, Cassandra Wayne followed her assigned partner here in Japan, Shoto Todoroki, to a hospital. Of course, Cass did not necessarily identify him in her head by his name. As someone who didn’t even really think in language, Cass’s way of thinking of him, or anything really, was impossible to describe to anyone for whom verbal language was the primary vector for communication. Even if Cass had perfected speaking or writing any of their languages, actually communicating her experience would be fruitless. Still, she did understand why they were there, as Todoroki spoke to the receptionist, telling her who they were there to see.

The words themselves that came out of Todoroki’s mouth might as well have been gibberish to Cass, who could barely register certain words in English. But even if she could not pick out the words the two people were using, her ability to read body language allowed her to understand what was being communicated anyway. Todoroki held himself stiffly, he was burdened with a lot of stress. From what Cass understood about his relationship with his mother, she could understand why. Together, they walked through the building until they reached the room where Rei Todoroki stayed. The woman was in bed, and while she was beautiful, with the same softly cast features her son had interhited, Cass could see a weariness in her, one she was clearly trying to hide as she shared a greeting with her son.

Shoto introduced Cass to his mother, and the reverse. Once it was Cass’s turn, she bowed her head slightly in Rei’s general direction, while Todoroki explained to his mother how Cass was different from most people. When she heard, Rei’s way of looking at her changed: she pitied Cass. She tried not to let it sting. Many people did so. Regardless of how capable, how successful, how strong Cass was, many would always pity her. Still, she was grateful that Todoroki added an explanation to his mother, one that told her not to move exaggeratedly on her behalf, that it was the equivalent of speaking slowly to someone in a language they didn’t know. It made Cass happy that Todoroki had accepted who she was, and had no problems advocating for her to others.

They made a little small talk, then Rei asked Cass how she was liking Japan so far. Working hard to remember how to make the needed sounds, Cass told her, “It is good.” She knew it must have sounded odd, people always looked at her weird when she did try to speak, and it must have been even odder, since she was trying to talk in English. Still, Rei calmly accepted the answer, and Cass retreated into her own thoughts.

Soon after starting the school year, her adopted father had made a visit to the school, flagged by J’onn J’onzz, the Martian Manhunter. Bruce had explained to her that they’d been doing research on the brain scans she’d provided shortly after entering his care, and they now thought it was possible for a telepath, such as the alien in the room, could enter her mind and make it easier for her to understand language, rewire her brain to undue the ‘damage’ done by her father.

While many thought her Quirk was what was responsible for her lack of language, Cass and a few others knew that wasn’t the case. After all, her father had a similar Quirk, as had the many siblings she’d had over the years. But that was only half the equation. To truly bring out the strength of the Quirk, they had all been raised with no access to language of any kind. Any that began exhibiting signs of developing language were disposed of. As far as Cass was aware, she was the only survivor of the experiment.

She’d made clear to Bruce Wayne that she would consider it, but even after all this time the question sat uneasily with her. On the one hand, it was true that her current state was due to trauma. She couldn’t deny that. What her father had done to her was monstrous. She had the scars to prove it. Changing her mind would make her life much easier, even if it had the risk of hampering her fighting abilities. But that was the question, wasn’t it? Was there anything wrong with her to fix?

To be sure, her mind was different from others. But who was to say they were correct in how they saw the world, and she was wrong? Was it simply because she deviated from the norm that her uniqueness had to be removed? The question ate away at her, the pros and cons of what could be floating by. If she stayed the way she was, Cass was confident in how she could live her life. Trying the procedure meant stepping out, into the unknown. Prior experience had taught her how dangerous such a path could be. But also, how fruitful.

Suddenly, Cass realized Todoroki had been trying to get her attention. “Sorry,” she apologized, the word clumsily falling out of her mouth. He explained he wanted a little time alone with his mother, if that was okay with her. Cass nodded, and left the two to themselves. It made her smile. Todoroki had a lot of difficult feeling, a lot of trauma, wrapped up with his mother. But he was still trying to make it work.

“Cassandra.” The voice came from down the hall, to the right. Even though it had been nearly ten years since she’d last heard that voice, and even longer since she’d heard it say her name, Cass still knew the voice of David Cain. Her body tensed, and she turned to see her father standing there, fifteen feet apart from her. He asked her how she was doing. She didn’t respond, except to change her stance to one ready to fight.

Her father sighed. He looked much the same as he had in her youth: tall, physically imposing, with facial features so sharp and hard it was like his face had been carved from a mountainside. The only sign of time passing was the grey hair that had begun to dust his originally midnight black hair. With a flash, Cass remembered how he’d held her down, how he’d shot at her, how he’d beat her.

He said something else...he’d just come to see her? Cass laughed, and it was clear that David didn’t like that. His jaw set in the same way it did before it was time for him to punish her for misbehaving. But then, the tension ebbed away, and it looked like David was looking at her with something warmer. He asked if she wanted to go home with him. He told her something she thought was a lie. But even then, she still couldn’t help thinking of the times when it was better. When he’d hugged her. When she’d felt warm, and safe, and loved in his arms.

But that was a long time ago. Cass shook her head. She had a new life. Bruce Wayne was her new father, one who had shown her more compassion and more love than David Cain ever had. Dick Grayson wasn’t just her teacher, as a fellow adopted child of Bruce Wayne, Mr. Grayson saw Cass as a younger sister. Young Damian was growing up with her as his older sister. And Stephanie...Stephanie was the best friend Cass had ever made. “I...” she told her father, making sure to carefully enunciate the words. “...am Cassandra Wayne.” Anger flashed in his eyes, and for a moment she was sure he was going to draw a gun on her.

A voice came from behind her, and Cass turned to see Todoroki, looking at her biological father. The young hero’s expression was cold enough to freeze the air into ice, and she could tell from the way his body was set that he was ready to use his Quirk at a moment’s notice. David Cain likely knew the same from his own Quirk, but he also seemed to know who this was, and walked away rather than risk a fight. “Are you okay?” Todoroki asked her, once they were both sure he was gone. Then, he asked if that was her father.

She nodded, then verbally told him, “Yes. I am fine. Thank you.” The two left the hospital, and once home, she did her best to communicate what had happened to Mr. Grayson. The teacher took the matter very seriously, and told her he’d let the Justice League know that the known assassin slash supervillain David Cain was in the area. Then, he transitioned from Mr. Grayson to Big Brother Dick, and asked if she was holding up alright. She was thankful for the concern, but made it clear she would be alright. That night, Cass watched movies with Stephanie, ate ice cream, and did everything she could to avoid thinking about the man who’d met her in the hallway.


	22. Interlude 4

“You’re sure this will work?” After many months working with the League of Villains, of becoming quite close to Shigaraki, leader of the League of Villains, Twice had learned not to treat certain instincts. Like the ones that told him the wrong answer to a question asked with that raspy, tense tone would lead to Twice’s imminent disintegration at his hands. They were in the current secret base of the villain group, just Shigaraki and Twice. He had been given the task of setting up this ‘meeting’, and even if this didn’t work (but it would), Twice knew Shigaraki wouldn’t kill him. Probably. The man was holding a flash drive, but only with two fingers.

Nodding fervently, Twice explained things once again. “I’m not sure,” he started, in a high voice, before adding in a lower pitch, “Yes, I’m confident it will!” Waving his hands as he talked, Twice told him, “I know a guy who knows a guy who...” Shigaraki made a disgruntled noise, so Twice skipped ahead. “...works for the Legion of Doom! It took some time, but I was handed this and told it would set up a meeting with him! I had the Doc check it out first, he said it was legit!”

Apparently that was enough for Shigaraki. “Why didn’t you tell me that sooner?” he muttered, before turning to the laptop in the room, getting it turned on and set up, then plugging in the USB device. Immediately, windows started popping up, code running across what looked like command lines, until suddenly the entire screen was taken up by some kind of video relay program. On the other end of the call, there was a bald man, one so famous that Twice knew immediately this was the right guy. He was looking into the camera, fingers steepled in front of him, waiting for the other party to make the first move. “Hello, Mr. Luthor,” Shigaraki started. “As you’re no doubt aware, I am Tomura Shigaraki of the League of Villains. Thank you for taking the time to meet with me.”

The man on the other end of the world made a sound of interest. “So, you’ve learned some manners. From everyone else’s descriptions, I expected to have to babysit a manchild through this call.” The supervillain’s voice came out in a rich baritone, one that belied that danger Twice knew the man speaking was capable of. Twice was scared that Shigaraki would be provoked by the taunt, but aside from some tension in his hands, he could see any sign of anger in his leader. “Now, why did you want to arrange this meeting?”

So, he wanted to get right to business. Twice supposed that made sense. Before becoming one of the most famous Villains on the planet, Lex Luthor was a corporate juggernaut, one of the richest men in human history. He probably still thought of things using the old adage ‘Time is money.’ Shigaraki was ready with his proposal, however. “Alright then,” he began in his usual, raspy voice. “The Legion of Doom has never been able to make a strong foothold in Japan. In less than a year, the League of Villains has stepped up as the new power here. I propose an alliance. If you lend us some of the resources we need, we can help you with anything you need in this country.”

This was exactly the kind of thing Twice had expected from this meeting. The League was doing well, but they’d never gotten what they needed from the Shie Hassaikai. Despite the fact they were being funded by whatever was left from the personal coffers of the guy who used to run Japan, All for One, they’d been running on fumes for quite a while now. They needed more people, and they needed money. Both of which were things the Legion of Doom, with membership in the tens of thousands, had in abundance. It looked like Luthor was considering the offer, before he finally gave a rebuttal. “I found it interesting to hear that you’d contacted me, boy.

“Your mentor and I had history together, did you know that?” Looking more tense now, Shigaraki nodded. Luthor let out something like a chuckle. “Oh, he told you about the ‘Quirkless freak’ he envied so much, then. For a long time, All for One was the most powerful Villain in the world. It wasn’t long until he began being tarnished with the same brush that he had to downgrade to merely being the strongest villain in Japan.” Any joy or mirth disappeared in an instant. Luthor’s face appeared passively neutral now, but the even line of his mouth appeared as sharp as a razor’s edge. “I offered numerous alliances to him, over the years, but he turned down every one. He didn’t want to work with someone without a Quirk, you see.”

For the first time, Twice was actually worried. Shigaraki had gotten a lot better about his temper, and being more diplomatic in general. But his love for his master was absolute, and Twice wasn’t sure the man could speak a single bad word about All for One. Finally, after a bit of a pause, Shigaraki said, “My master is a man of another time. I understand why he sees things the way he does, but I am more than willing to work with a man of your talents.” That definitely surprised Twice. He didn’t necessarily say anything bad about the Bigger Bad, but he’d still chosen the alliance.

Luthor looked impressed as well. He was actually smiling. The expression was still nothing anyone would call ‘warm’ or ‘human’, but it was something. “I was going to refuse the offer outright, but you’ve changed my mind. Shigaraki, I have a counteroffer for you: the Legion of Doom would be willing to take the risk and absorb your organization into ours.” Twice froze. A hostile takeover. “You would take a place of respect in the Legion, as a regional supervisor for Japan, and you’d have  **all** the resources of the Legion at your fingertips, just as we would get all you have.” Twice knew what he meant: the Nomus and the bullets.

This wasn’t what they wanted. More than anything, Twice knew that the League didn’t want to just be taken over by another group. They needed to be the ones on top. It was part of who they were. For a moment, he was scared that Shigaraki would take the offer. Instead, all he told Luthor was, “I refuse,” before he reached out and touched the laptop with all five fingers, and it disintegrated into dust, without Lex Luthor being able to say another word. Shigaraki turned to look at Twice, and he was scared that his leader would punish him for the failure. But instead, he just mumbled, “It was worth a try,” and left the room. Twice let out the breath he’d been holding, happy at the very least this hadn’t gone nearly as bad as last time.


	23. Chapter 18-Joint Search & Rescue Exercise

After being driven over to the USJ almost a week ago to watch other teams (ones who hadn’t lost in the first round) with their combat training exercise, Virgil Hawkins did not think he would be back so soon. Once again, both classes were loaded into busses and sent off, but this time, they weren’t there to fight. They were there to practice rescue instead. Now, despite the fact that Virgil had been tapping his foot the entire way there, he was not nervous. Not at all.

Sure, he and the rest of his class were being tested on something they’d had minimal, if any, training in. And despite a ton of hours logged in for hero work, as a solo hero and as the leader of his team, Virgil had never had to respond to a situation where his main priority was saving people in need of rescue. He knew that was sometimes necessary, but it was also the job of rescue workers, right?

Usually, Virgil didn’t worry about tests this much. Like he’d told Yaoyarozu, Virgil’s philosophy was to take being a hero as best he could, without letting it run his life. But then again, he’d also always been confident he’d do well. He was a smart guy, a good fighter, and a not-inadequate detective. But, he had to tell himself, it wasn’t like he had to be good at everything, right?

Stowing that line of thought for another day, Virgil joined everyone else with getting out of the bus and entering the USJ. All the teachers were there, ready for them...along with someone else. He was wearing what looked like a hero costume, and he appeared to be American. With short messy brown hair and an average build the only thing that made him stand out was the costume, which was green with six yellow circles connected together by yellow lines. No support items or anything like that. Everyone was looking at the guy, and when the teachers started talking, they addressed that head-on.

“Hello classes, this is Mr. Madrox, also known by the hero name Multiple Man,” Mr. Aizawa told them in his usual dull tone. The name didn’t ring a single bell with Virgil, but then it wasn’t like he knew every hero in America by heart. There were thousands, after all. Then, with no warning, the exhausted looking teached swung a hand and hit Mr. Madrox in the stomach. As expected, the man fell to the floor, but when they looked at where he’d fallen, there were two men there...two Mr. Madrox’s.

Both rose to their feet, then one reached out to touch the other, and that one turned into energy and was absorbed by the first. Giving his usual charming smile, Mr. Grayson continued the explanation. “Mr. Madrox here’s Quirk is called Duplication. Whenever he gets hit, he can make more of himself. He’s the one you’re going to be rescuing. How many of him? That’s for all of you to find out.”

The man himself continued telling them about the exercise. “H-Hey there, ladies and germs. So, yeah, a bunch of me are out there, and they’ll be faking their injuries from the ‘disaster’ as best they can. Rescue them...but be careful to treat them right! Any extra owies, and you’ll have more of them to deal with! That’ll make it harder to get them to safety, and the more extra me’s you bring back, the worse your score will be.” It sounded like the guy was trying to be funny, but he also looked a bit nervous to be doing public speaking.

Virgil’s mind was racing. Right away, it was clear how they were being graded, at least on one level. They had to make sure and help the people being rescued carefully, and mistakes could cost them dearly. Helping one person to safety is one thing, but doubling or tripling him out of nowhere makes things exponentially more difficult. While Virgil was freaking out a little, Ms. Clay added onto the explanation. “As for where to take the Madrox’s you rescue, we’ll count this area at the front of the USJ as the ‘Safe Zone’. That said, if you’re able to administer any help to the injured, do so.” The Titan’s school counselor's gaze on the students sharpened immeasurably, and she added, “Doing so would be good for your grade, but I would hope heroes would care more about saving people than such things.”

“Each team gets 30 minutes to save as many Madrox’s as they can,” Mr. Aizawa told them, taking control back to finish things off. “But unlike all the other Joint Training Exercises, teams not participating will  **not** be able to view the others’ attempts. In order to make it as fair as possible, Madrox positions and injuries are consistent for everyone’s Exercise attempt, so you’re not able to cheat by watching where others first succeed. We’ll be watching everything via monitor,” the sleepy hero explained, gesturing to himself and the other teachers, and what seemed to be the Prime Mr. Madrox. “While the rest of you wait outside. We’ll call you all in via intercom. Now get out.”

With that abrupt signal, all the students exited the USJ, and Virgil looked at his team. But before he could put together a game plan, his homeroom teacher’s voice came over the loudspeaker. “Hey, Team Scientific American, you’re up first!” Cursing whoever had dealt him this hand, Virgil took a deep breath and entered the building again, his team at his back. Once inside, Mr. Grayson shouted, “Begin!” and they rushed into action.

Immediately, Virgil heard cries from help coming from all over, all of them the voice of Mr. Madrox. “Everyone, save as many as you can, and call for help if you need it!” Without a plan, it was the best Virgil could come up with. After all, he trusted his team to do their best, and the faster they did something the better. Going into action now was better than standing around until he came up with something more coordinated.

Virgil had always chosen to go simple with his hero costumes. At this time, he was wearing a white domino mask over his eyes, a dark blue coat, and a shirt with an electricity symbol inside a circle. It was distinct enough from the Flash’s not to get sued. Reaching into the belt on his costume, Virgil grabbed his favorite support item: an unfolding metal disc strong and sturdy enough to hold his weight. Once it was spread out and on the ground, he jumped on and unleashed his Quirk. Static electricity poured out of his body and into the disc, and with it under his control, Virgil flew through the air to look for people to help.

After taking off, he looked around to the various environments, and quickly sped off in the direction of the city. It’s where he’d fought the most crime, and with his powers, it was also where he’d be the most useful. More metal meant more options. Keeping an ear open, it wasn’t long until Virgil heard someone crying for help. Flying into the open window on a building’s third story, he collapsed his disc and stored it again and started looking for the person in danger.

The entire city district looked different than it had last time he was here, made to look like there had been a bombing or earthquake or something. Buildings were all hit badly, partially in rubble, and in some of that rubble Virgil saw the head of Mr. Madrox, who immediately met his eyes. “Hey, someone’s here! Oh thank you, wise and benevolent hero!” His words were overly enunciated, glowing with sarcasm. “Now, uh, can you get me out of here?”

Only his head and part of one part was immediately visible, the rest covered in debris. All of which was concrete, but a quick check confirmed for Virgil that the wall had been laced with steel rebar. Funneling his electricity into that structure, he was able to lifted most of the debris off of the man. While holding all that with his Quirk, Virgil started moving rubble until he could drag Mr. Madrox to one side. Then, once he was out of the way, he let his Quirk go and the material fell back to where it had been before.

Dust rose into the air, and when it had blown away enough to see, Virgil sucked in a breath. He knew it was make-up, that this was just an exercise, but Mr. Madrox looked injured. One arm was hanging limply at his side, and the other looked like it was bleeding. “Hey, can you stand, Mr. Madrox?” was what he asked him first.

That had apparently been the wrong thing to do. “Really? Save a person and that’s the first thing you ask them? Not ‘It’s going to be okay’ or ‘Don’t worry, I’m here to help’ or even ‘Where does it hurt’? Do you think someone just pulled out of rubble is going to know if they can stand or not?” The hero rolled his eyes, and Virgil felt embarrassed. “Oh, and just call me Jamie. Anyway, yeah, I can stand, but I can’t use my right arm at all, and the left one hurts like hell.”

From the way he was talking, it didn’t sound like he was actually in any pain, but Virgil got what he was trying to say: treat him as if that were true. Nodding his head, and trying to get it back into the game, Virgil pulled out his disk again and set it up, then helped Jamie to stand on it with him. “Alright, Jamie, it’ll be okay. Let me take you somewhere safe.” Then, once they were both standing on the disk, Virgil pumped it with his electricity so they could start rising into the air.

“Ow!” Jamie yelped, the sound clearly genuine, and suddenly there were two of him, both looking annoyed. “What are you doing, shocking people you’re trying to rescue?” Virgil didn’t understand what had happened, his disk was supposed to be safe...until he looked down at the two Jamie’s feet.

Slapping his hand against his forehead, Virgil felt like an idiot. “You’re not wearing rubber-soled shoes.” He’d had people ride with him before without an issue, but that was because they’re been wearing the right footwear. The costumes the Jamie’s had on didn’t have rubber lining on the bottom, causing the shock. They looked like they wanted to say something to Virgil, but he waved a hand and interrupted them. “I know, I know, I shouldn’t just assume people I’m saving will fit my expectations, that was stupid of me.” Both Jamie’s nodded their heads and smiled at that, happy he got the point. Moving back toward the rubble Jamie had been pulled out of, Virgil dug through until he found what he was looking for: a flat section of concrete wide enough for two people to stand on it comfortably. Using his Quirk on it again, he brought it closer to the waiting heroes and set it on the floor. “Stand here, you shouldn’t be shocked this time.”

They did as he asked, and soon Virgil and the Jamie’s were flying out of the city area and back to the front of the USJ. He had no clue how much time he’d spent on just this one Jamie, his sense of that had gone out the window in his panic. Had it been five minutes? Ten? Fifteen? Feeling a bit aggravated, as a way to avoid thinking of how he’d messed up, Virgil couldn’t help complaining. “I know it’s bad to zap a civ, but the punishment here is pretty crazy. It’s not like actual people in need are gonna duplicate any time we make a mistake?”

“Do you know that for sure?” was the immediate response from one of the Jamie’s. He didn’t sound joking this time, but pensieve and serious. “When you’re saving people, you not only need to think about what you can do, but what they can do. Or rather, how you don’t know. Not everyone with crazy Quirks becomes a hero, you know? It’s entirely possible you’ll run into someone in a bad situation who splits like me, or grows larger when they’re anxious, or shrinks with fear. Quirks are crazy! As a hero, you need to have things like that on your mind, and try to plan ahead.”

Great, now Virgil felt even worse. Jamie had made a good point, and Virgil couldn’t avoid the fact he was trying to think around where he’d failed. His entire strategy, or lack thereof, was a problem. So once he got the Jamie’s back to the front of the USJ, where they joined several others waiting there already, saved by his teammates, Virgil didn’t head off again. Instead, he waited for the rest of his team to come back, one by one, and told them the new plan.

This time, Virgil and Karen were working recon. They both could fly, and quickly locate Jamie’s in need. Each of them had a helper, Grant and Nia, who could use their Quirks to easily and safely retrieve the Jamie’s from their predicaments. Once they were rescued, they’d send a signal to Mal, who would use his Audioporting to make a portal to there from the entrance, and take the Jamie’s to safety, so the others could go back to finding and helping more Jamie’s.

Virgil knew it wasn’t the best possible plan he could have come up with, it wasn’t very ‘Plus Ultra’, but he didn’t care. It felt like it was working, a lot better than before. By the time the thirty minutes was up, they’d saved a total of eleven Jamie’s, though three of those were dupes made from injuring him during rescue. None of them thought they’d passed with flying colors, but Virgil actually walked up feeling good that at least he’d pulled out something in the last half. He’d just need to wait on his detailed results to learn how to improve.

* * *

It was impossible for Momo Yaoyarozu to say that she wasn’t nervous for the exercise. After all, she’d led her team to a loss in the first round of the Joint Combat Exercises, and done poorly with the Joint Investigation Exercise. She was pretty sure she wasn’t imagining the concerned looks from her teammates. But, despite all of that, and her general issue with nerves, Momo was trying to stay positive. She’d been studying Search and Rescue ever since they missed their chance to practice it during the USJ Attack, and she’d done very well during that very section of their License Exam.

She’d already shared her plan with her team while they waited outside, and while some members of her class looked nervous about it, on the whole it seemed they were willing to trust her with what she wanted to do. Finally, after everyone else in the class had gone, and they finished setting things up one last time, they called in Momo’s team. Heart hammering in her chest, and her friends stepped inside, ready to do their best.

Once inside, everyone went about their tasks. Koda started calling out to the animals nearby, asking for their help in locating the injured hero duplicates. When they’d been let in earlier, Momo had thought she’d spied birds in the forest area, and it seemed her guess had been right: they had added animals to the USJ, possibly for verisimilitude...or possibly for how they’d interact with Koda’s Quirk. While he was off, asking the animals to mark the locations of the Jamie’s as best they could, moving from sector to sector, Tokoyami and Sero went to the nearest environment, the river area.

Both were the most mobile of the team, and could use their Quirks to rescue any duplicates of Mr. Madrox they found. Finding them would be easy, thanks to Koda telling birds to fly visibly above any duplicate he found. Together, the two would go through each environment, one by one, to find and rescue all the versions of Mr. Madrox there, and bring them to the front area.

While they were doing that, Momo and Ojiro got to work. Using her Quirk, Momo started making a clean sheet for people to safely lie on, so they wouldn’t get dirty. That done, she started making everything else they’d need: medical supplies, towels, and water bottles. It took a lot of lipids to make all that, and it felt exhausting for Momo. She took a short break, while Ojiro went to the nearby water source to fill up the water bottles.

Soon, the first versions of Mr. Madrox were arriving, being delivered by her teammates, and Momo was ready. She and Ojiro worked on treating their fake injuries as best they could, making them comfortable, and giving them as much water as they needed. The time moved quickly for her as they all did their part, and shortly after they’d found and helped their twentieth duplicate, a timer went off. Momo was confused at first, by her estimate, they still had seven minutes left. “With time to spare, Momo Yaoyarozu’s team has not only rescued every Jamie Madrox, they also treated them! Detailed reports later, but for now, give yourselves a clap on the back! You did great!”

The youthful exuberance in Mr. Grayson’s voice as he sang their praises embarrassed Momo, but soon her team had enveloped her in a group hug, and they left the USJ in high spirits. On the bus ride back, they decided to not enforce who went on which bus, allowing them to mix and match however they’d like. To Momo’s surprise, Virgil sat next to her right away, looking at her with clearly conflicted feelings in his eyes, but a smile on his face. “Word on the street is you guys knocked it out of the park! Congrats. Where’d it come from, though?”

Feeling unsure how to respond, Momo shrugged and meekly told him, “Well, I suppose I had more practice with this aspect of hero work beforehand. That, and I’ve made sure to put a lot of effort into studying it.” Then, feeling rude for only talking about herself, Momo asked him, “How did you and your team do?” She’d been so busy going over details with her team that she hadn’t paid much attention to any of the other groups as they left the USJ.

Momo got a similar shrug to the one she’d given Virgil earlier as a response. “I blew it.” Running a hand through his thick black hair, his mask of self-assurance fell away a little as Momo saw how troubled he was really feeling. “I’d been stressing out about it, since it isn’t anything we’d really trained in, and I tried to just wing it. Bad idea. By the time I’d actually started using my head and making a real plan, time was up.” He allowed himself a brief sigh, then added, “At least I’m not alone. From the looks of it, the only team from my school that did good was Tim’s. Meanwhile, everyone from UA looks like they passed, even that explosive hothead.”

It felt rude of her to admit, even in her own head, but Momo was surprised to hear that Bakugo had done well. She and he were, in a way, opposite extremes as two of the top students in the class. One was better suited for support, the other combat. One struggled with self-confidence, the other his own arrogance. The thing that they had in common, more than getting good grades, was that they wanted to be heroes. That was what Momo decided was most important. “Well, hopefully you can use the notes you get back to work to improve,” Momo finally told Virgil, unsure of what else to say to him.

To her surprise, his first response was to laugh. “Look at that. A week ago I dump on you for the whole Plus Ultra thing, act like I’ve got everything figured out, and now here we are.” Looking a little more serious, but still good humored, he continued, “Not to say I’m suddenly changing my whole worldview or anything, but I can see how sometimes going above and beyond can pay off.” Reaching out a hand to her, he asked, “How about we make a deal: you promise to let yourself take a break and relax sometimes, and I promise to give you a run for your money next time we go head to head.”

When Momo had first been assigned to work with Virgil, she hadn’t been sure what to make of him. In many ways, they were worlds apart. A working class teen from the other side of the world, who made everything look easy and didn’t seem to have an ounce of stress in his body. She’d seen more recently how that wasn’t really the case, and in the process he’d learned more about her as well. With no hesitation, Momo reached out to take and shake his hand, accepting the promise and telling herself she’d do her best to live up to her end of it.


	24. Chapter 19-Vigilantes and Legacies

The entire morning after the Joint Search and Rescue Training Exercise, Rikido Sato was nervous. Not because he was worried about how well they’d done in the test yesterday. While Momo and her team seemed to have done the best, Iida had led them really well, with only a single Jamie dupe marring their score. No, something he’d heard later that day was the cause of his anxiety.

Before class started, Rikido knocked on Stephanie Brown’s door while holding a freshly baked muffin. He heard some shuffling sounds on the other side, and then she opened the door. As he’d expected, she looked terrible. Her eyes had bags so dark and thick he was worried for her health, and the sclera was bloodshot. From the frown on her face, she wasn’t exactly happy to see him, but after looking down at the offered breakfast, she muttered, “Come in.” It was her favorite kind of muffin, with a mix of blueberries and strawberries.

Feeling a little awkward coming into a girl’s room, Rikido tentatively crossed the threshold. The room was spartan, and without anywhere to sit other than the bed, which was where Stephanie plopped after grabbing the muffin, Rikido elected to stand. “So, uh, I wanted to talk to you about what you’ve been...doing...lately...” Despite being fairly well liked, if a bit ignored, in his class, Rikido had always had issues speaking his mind with personal matters like this.

Stephanie had clearly been hungry, and was tearing chunks out of the fluffy sweet with her mouth while giving him an annoyed look. “What  _ have _ I been doing, Sato? You tell me.” Her tone was hostile, but Rikido decided to look on the bright side: she hadn’t kicked him out yet.

Yet. Taking a deep breath, he decided to approach this from a more obtuse angle. “Yesterday, after we came back from the USJ, Mr. Grayson pulled me aside to talk to me.” That had gotten her attention, and suddenly a bit of the fire went out of her. “He wanted to let me know that, the past week, there have been reports of a vigilante stopping small-time crime in the area at night. I didn’t know why at first...until he told me to ask you about it.”

He thought that maybe, after saying that much, she’d jump on an explanation. But instead, she was just looking down, refusing to meet his eyes. So, he continued. “I still didn’t really know what he meant, but then I realized: you’ve been really tired lately. It’s like you haven’t been getting any sleep. I told myself it couldn’t be you, since sneaking in or out of UA is supposed to be impossible. But then I remembered how good a hacker you said you were, and last night, I took this.” He pulled out his phone, and showed her a picture. It was of Stephanie, not wearing her hero costume but instead just some dark, concealing clothes with a face mask, climbing out of her window. “You can’t just fight crime like that, Steph, it’s illegal.”

“It wouldn’t be in America...” It was said so softly, Rikido wasn’t even sure she’d said it at first. He tilted his head at that, so she finally looked at him again and started to explain. “Back in America, it works differently. Even as a minor, you can apply and get a license for hero work really easily. I’ve had one since I was 14. Pretty much everyone in my class has done actual hero work outside of class, it’s encouraged. And I have the most hours logged of any first year in Titans history.”

That definitely sounded impressive, and Rikido did feel a little jealous that the other school actually let them go out and do real hero work. But she hadn’t really addressed his point. “Okay, but, this is Japan. Over here, I don’t think it’s legal for you to be doing hero work.”

It looked like she’d been expecting to hear that, and let out a sigh. “Yeah, I know,” Stephanie admitted. She laid back on her bed, looking as exhausted as Rikido imagined she felt. “Okay, so, I might have been doing some less-than-legal heroing. I just couldn’t take it anymore! Classes are alright, but actually being out there? That’s what I want! There was no way I could go a full month without hitting the streets.”

Never in a million years would Rikido have expected his newfound friend was invested in hero work. He, like a lot of his classmates, were at UA to become a hero, but for Stephanie it wasn’t something she was training for, it was something she already was. She was just getting better at it. Running a hand through his spiky hair, Rikido tried to think of something to say. “But, why though?” was all he managed to come up with. “Why do you  **need** to be out there?”

She made a scoffing sound, but Rikido didn’t say anything, and gave her time to come up with a good explanation. “I told you before that I became a hero to stop my dad, right?” He nodded his head, and when she kept waiting, he made a noise to affirm that she was right. “Well, I hadn’t gotten a license at the time. But it turned out to be really exhilarating, using my wits and my athletics to fight bad guys. But I got caught for being a vigilante. The thing is, back home, especially in places like Gotham, that’s basically nothing. I got the choice of a slap on the wrist...or the chance to take the license test for free.

“Of course, I passed the test easy. So there I was, a young teenager, out fighting crime. I was basically a nobody. But as the Spoiler, I did my best to help Gotham. When I applied for Titans, I didn’t think I’d ever get it.” Up to this point, Rikido wasn’t sure where she was going. But now, she was getting to the heart of the matter. “Ever since Tim, Cass, and I became friends, I’ve been kind of lumped in with the Bat Family. Plus, y’know, I’m from Gotham too. But Batman is the greatest Quirkless superhero in the world. Dick Grayson is his adopted son, the first ever Robin, led the highest rated team in Titans Academy history, and is my freaking teacher. Even though Barbara Gordon doesn’t do field hero work since her injury, she’s only become more renowned as Oracle. Jason Todd, the second Robin, died a hero. Cass is also Batman’s adopted daughter, and might be the best hand-to-hand fighter on the planet. Tim sometimes acts like he’s an outsider too, but who is he kidding? He’s the greatest detective of our generation, and a brilliant leader too. So, how am I special? How do I stand out?”

Now was when Rikido started to get it. “That’s why you have to be out there,” he said, feeling both understanding and sorrow mix in his heart. “Because it makes you feel like you’re doing something. Like you belong here.” Stephanie made a sound of agreement, and Rikido took a deep breath. “I kind of get what you mean. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I kind of slip into the background a lot. I’m training as hard as everyone else...but I’m not seeing anything for it. So many of my classmates have gotten to do great things, to prove themselves...it’s gotten to the point where I almost want a villain to attack me, if it means I can show everyone I belong here too.”

The blonde heroine let out a whistle. “Damn, dude.” Then, she laughed. “We’re a couple of weirdos, aren’t we?” Rikido joined her laughter, and when they stopped, she said, sounding almost defeated, “I’ll tell Mr. Grayson not to worry. We’re only here for, what, another week? I’ve gotten my fix. I’ll keep my hands clean.” It was sad for him to think about, that she and the rest of her class were heading back across the world so soon. But that just made Rikido want to enjoy the time they still had together more.

* * *

The time so far in Japan had been both a boon and a bane to Tim Drake and the rest of his team. They’d been doing well in the Joint exercises, though even with his passing score, he still felt they had more to learn regarding Search and Rescue. He and Izuku Midoriya hadn’t had any issues as assigned partners, though as each had their own circles of friends and were often busy with their teams, they didn’t get to see each other very often. Stephanie had started off a bit stressed the first few weeks, but lately had seemed more at peace, if a bit tired.

The bigger issues came from the friends who were also his teammates. Raven and her assigned partner had gotten into an argument, and while it had healed quickly, something about the girl still seemed off to Tim. Then again, he’d never had the best read on Raven, even though he tried his best. Gar’s loneliness had been hitting him harder, so far away from home. And Starfire...Tim didn’t know what to do about that. It hadn’t taken the world’s greatest detective to figure out why spending more time in a strange place, but still with a certain someone, was making her more conflicted. But that wasn’t his place to meddle. The only one who hadn’t been having any major issues, as far as he could tell, was Vic.

“You okay, Tim?” Midoriya’s voice knocked Tim out of his thought process. He’d been waiting for the green-haired hero outside the UA dorm, so they could head to the Titan’s one together and talk privately in Tim’s room. Considering their shared circumstances, both had wanted to talk more, but finding the time had been difficult, especially with the privacy required.

Shaking his head to try and get back in the moment, Tim smiled and told him, “Yeah, let’s get going.” The walk to Tim’s room was filled with idle chatter about heroes. It made him smile. Midoriya might have been the most hero-obsessed person Tim had ever met, not that it was an issue. When they’d finally gotten situated somewhere more private, just as Midoriya finished telling him about a time where All Might had saved some kid with a vinegar-related Quirk, Tim threw out a new question. “How many times have Batman and All Might done a team-up?”

It was a good place to start. After all, there was no hero Midoriya idolized more than All Might, and none that Tim loved more than Batman. “Not counting full teams, All Might and Batman have teamed up four times! Twice while All Might was studying in America, and two since then, once in Japan, and once in Gotham City!” Smiling brightly, Midoriya added, “It’s funny, they seem so at odds, but they work really well together! It’s unexpected, but that’s two more times than All Might has teamed up with The Flash and once more than with Superman!”

Just imagining those two hanging out made Tim laugh. He’d only met America’s most famous hero a handful of times, while he visited his cousin or clone, Tim’s schoolmates, but even then he was able to see that his general media portrayal wasn’t an exaggeration. He genuinely was as kind, generous, and warm-hearted as Tim had imagined. The idea of him spending time with the similarly beloved All Might would be like a competition in niceness. “Speaking of them,” Tim said, trying to turn the conversation a bit more towards the serious. “We’ve got a lot to live up to, don’t we?”

The second that topic got brought up, Midoriya’s shining happiness was gone, and suddenly the hero was fidgety and nervous. “Yeah, we do.” Out of everyone in his class, Midoriya had seen the most action, almost comparable to a lot of Titans students. “Sometimes, I’ve afraid I’ll never be the Symbol of Peace. Or if I am, that I’ll be a poor one. I mean, All Might is just so...”

Tim completely understood where he was coming from. “Tell me about it,” Tim said with a sigh. “It isn’t just the papers who are calling me Mr. Wayne’s true successor. One of his big-time villains has started treating me that way too.” He shivered at the thought. If he never spent another second in the presence of Ra’s Al Ghul, it would be too soon. “I feel like Mr. Wayne’s a little more hands off than All Might is though. He mostly just gives me vague advice and leaves me to figure it out.” Then, something occurred to Tim, and he quickly asked, “Why did you get picked? For One for All?”

A light blush graced Midoriya’s freckled cheeks, and his stutter got force. “O-oh, that? It’s not really a great story. Uh...” It looked like Midoriya wasn’t sure how to even start telling it. “Basically, I ran into All Might, and told him I wanted to be a hero, even if I was Quirkless. He tried to tell me I couldn’t, but I ended up learning more about him. Even after my dream was crushed, I still rushed in to stop a villain from hurting someone, before I even knew I was doing it. It was that instinct, to just rush in and help, that convinced All Might to trust me.” Hearing that made Tim smile. It just sounded so much like something Midoriya would do. Maybe it wasn’t the  _ best _ criteria for passing along the world’s strongest Quirk, but Tim thought it had been the right choice anyway. “What about you, Tim?”

Great, now it was his turn to be embarrassed. Even thinking about it made Tim feel like he was a kid again. “I’ve always had a really good mind for solving mysteries. When I was ten, I started solving crimes just from what was reported in the newspapers. No one would take me seriously though, so I wrote letters to Batman telling him what I’d figured out. After my fifth one, he wrote back, and told me to be more careful. What I was giving him was useful, but it would be better if no one else could read it.” He could still remember how giddy he’d felt, when his dad handed him a letter from Bruce Wayne himself, addressed to Tim. “I started researching ways to encode the information, using ciphers, and Mr. Wayne approved. I kept helping him, until he sent me something: information about the Robin Program. I started training myself, even though my dad didn’t approve. I got accepted, and, well, here I am.”

He could still remember, after becoming friends with Stephanie, learning she’d been the runner-up candidate. Ever since, he couldn’t tell if she was still hurt by that fact, or if he was just imagining it. Still, Midoriya seemed to like what he’d heard about Tim’s origin story. “Remind me to show you my notebooks sometime before we go, I think you’d find them interesting.” Unsure exactly what he meant, Tim decided to just nod his head.

Still, there was one last thing Tim wanted to tell Midoriya. “The thing is though, I don’t just feel like I need to prove myself to Mr. Wayne. I actually feel more of that towards Mr. Grayson.” Clearly, Midoriya still understood what he meant, from the look of understanding in his eyes. “I mean, he’s right there. Batman’s original sidekick, the Boy Wonder. When he attended Titans Academy, his team, the Teen Titans, were legendary. Robin, Kid Flash, Aqualad, Wonder Girl, and Speedy. Today, they all teach at Titans, and are among the Top 100 American Heroes. He’s really supportive and nice, but I never feel like I’m living up to his example.”

Looking suddenly a lot sadder, Midoriya gave his own experience. “All Might had a sidekick too, Sir Nighteye. I worked with him, as part of an internship. He...didn’t approve of me having One for All. He was serious, and kind of mean, but he was also a real Hero. He...died, during a mission we had together.” Just hearing that, Tim felt bad for even bringing the topic up. Sure, his mentor seemed unattainably perfect, but it was still possible to get his approval. Midoriya might live in that dead man’s shadow forever. But as if to dispel that very notion, Midoriya looked at Tim with a smile. “Still,  **I** know that All Might picked me, and I trust him. I’m going to be the next Symbol of Peace.” Hearing that, Tim believed him, 1,000,000%.


	25. Chapter 20-Conversations and Voids

This whole stupid trip had been nothing but hell for Minoru Mineta. Initially, when he’d heard about a bunch of foreign chicks coming to study with them, the shortly statured student had been ecstatic. It seemed to get even better when it turned out his assigned buddy was a girl. Not just any girl, either. Kole Weathers was a total babe, with a curvy figure, cute face, and at first she seemed a bit flirtatious too! But then, something went wrong.

Unsure if he’d just come on too strong, or if Kole was just mean, she started saying stuff to him, telling him to stop following her around. He’d persisted nonetheless, but even Mineta had limits. Namely, being threatened with violence from a teacher. So, he’d dialed it back for a while. He hadn’t stopped pursuing her, of course. Mineta was no quitter. He’d just been more...secretive about it.

As the time when Kole stayed in Japan was nearing an end, something interesting happened. Knowing that she was going to be stending her last Saturday with friends in the UA dorm, Mineta hid himself inside a cabinet, giving him the perfect angle to eavesdrop and listen in. Soon, he, like Kole, was waiting for the rest of the group to show up.

But the ones who appeared were not who either of them expected. Instead of the UA girls Kole had been spending time with during her trip so far, it was a group of Titans students who showed up. That martian girl, some blond guy with curly hair, a thin looking cutie with long blonde hair, and that one girl whose hero costume kind of looked like Wonder Woman’s. “What are you doing here?” Kole asked them, her voice waspish.

Straining his eyes to get a better look, Mineta saw as they were surrounding Kole, who was still sitting on the couch, before they sat down around her, one on each side of the couch, with the martian and the guy sitting in chairs facing her. It was quiet, until one of them finally replied to her question. “Some of your friends from UA came to me, to talk. About you, I mean. They wanted to know what happened with you and the rest of us, and I realized I should have done this a while ago,” the green girl said.

The tallest one, Wonder Girl Mineta thought, let out a scoff and added, “Yeah, you should have.” Even someone as socially inept as Mineta could feel the tension gather between then, until that same girl added, sounding regretful, “Sorry, that’s not helping. What’s important is we’re doing it now.”

“What is it exactly that ‘we’ are doing?” Kole asked, sounding just as acidic as one of Ashido’s slaps when Mineta was too pervy to her. “I don’t remember agreeing to anything.”

It looked like they were just going to ignore that comment and get right to it. “When the year started, we...were a good team,” the martial girl said. “We were friends. But along the way, something fell apart, and I was too timid to do anything about it. It’s not too late. Let’s go over everyone’s grievances, and do our best to make up for them.” Then, she looked at the other person sitting in a chair. “Let’s start with Joseph.”

Naturally, Mineta expected that blond guy to start talking, but he didn’t. Instead, the martian girl started looking intently at him, then opened her mouth. But...it wasn’t really  _ her _ voice coming out. “You were all pretty nice to me at first, but I started feeling like a burden. None of you bothered to learn any sign language, and it felt like you were excluding me from everything.” That sparked some comments about how that hadn’t been intended, and a full discussion came from it, until everyone made it clear to that guy, Joseph apparently, that they’d be willing to try learning sign language, they just didn’t realize he’d wanted that. Weirdly enough, it had apparently been one of the girls, Tara, who’d said the wrong thing that made them start drifting away from him.

Next it was Kole’s turn. Seeming to be more into the idea now, Kole started with a bomb out of the gates. “It feels like you guys hate me.” That got their attention. “Like, I know I shared some stuff that you wished I hadn’t, but you never told me those things were confidential! Instead of trying to be more open about yourselves, or talking to me about it, you just cut me out!” The debate afterwards was a bit more heated than before. The exact details of who had said what to who and what exactly sparked everything was difficult to untangle. Geez, Mineta found himself thinking, stupid girls and their dumb drama.

Eventually, it seemed like they’d come to some kind of resolution. They’d try being social with Kole again, with the understanding that unless they specified otherwise, she considered everything she heard as free to share. Once again, it was Tara who’d messed everything up, when she’d told Kole something ‘Cassie’ had told her in confidence, which soon the whole school knew about. This was news to Cassie, who had heard it was M’gann, the martial girl, who had spilled the beans. Tara said something about it being a mistake on her part, but Mineta wasn’t sure.

Apparently Tara had nothing to air out, she wasn’t sure why everyone had drifted apart. With Cassie up next, all she had to say was, “My stuff already kind of came up with Kole’s. Just...I want to trust you guys. I’ll try it again. But I’m also...nevermind. M’gann, you’re up.”

Mineta was definitely curious about what the girl had been about to say, but listened eagerly anyway as M’gann told them, “I’m really glad we could discuss all of that. For me...I just feel like...none of you respect me.” Silence followed that, a very uncomfortable one. “I’m your leader. I’m doing my best. But if you don’t talk to me, I don’t know what I’m messing up, and what I’m doing well. I need you to believe in me, and help me help all of you.” From there, they discussed what issues they had with how M’gann had been leading them, and the meeting ended with Mineta actually believing they’d be doing better going forward.

Still, that feeling was short-lived. Kole was leaving the room, heading outside! Ready to continue his secret stalking, he waited for the room to be empty, then he quietly walked out of the cabinet. He was feeling pretty cocky for how that had turned out. “Mineta.” The unmistakable voice of Mr. Grayson came from right behind him. When Mineta didn’t turn to look at him, as he was frozen in fear, the teacher sighed and walked in front of Mineta. For the first time since the Americans had arrived, the teacher wasn’t smiling. “I’ve heard a lot about you. I know you’re smart. Which is why I’m telling you this: I know you’ve been stalking Kole. You’re going to stop. Right now. If I get even a whisper about you bothering her or anyone else at this school, I’ll be talking to Principal Nezu about this.” The threat hung in the air, and Mineta hung his head. He was screwed. He had no choice but to stop, if someone like that guy was going to be on his heels. He’d have to be on his best behavior, at least until all the Titans staff left for their country. And so Mineta left for his dorm room, having learned nothing.

* * *

Despite what some of her classmates thought about the guy, Traci Thurston had no complaints with her assigned partner for the class trip, Yuga Aoyama. From their first trip to a cafe onward, they’d spent quite a bit of time together. He seemed quite interested in her magic, and Traci enjoyed his French background and talent for being extra. They’d gone on a lot of local adventures together, made more exciting thanks to her magic.

For their last Saturday together, they agreed to meet up at the school gates so she could surprise him. It was the middle of the afternoon, with Traci having arrived there well ahead of schedule, when she saw Aoyama walking over, wearing his most stylish casual clothes. She had to admit the guy had an eye for fashion. If he was less, well, ostentatious, she might have been interested in him. Traci had always been more of a fan of the modest, honest type.

“So, where are we going?” he asked, and Traci only smiled as a response. Pulling out some chalk from a pocket, she walked over the the wall separating the campus from the outside world and drew the shape of a door. Then, around the outside, a number of symbols. Their origins varied widely, from the Indian peninsula, to Northern Europe, to characters from the languages of the Far East. But the meaning of the symbols were deeply interrelated, and when the last one was drawn, everything changed. Where there had once been a wall, there was now a door.

She motioned for Aoyama to go on ahead, which he did with some slight trepidation. That was another thing she’d learned about the naval-lazer shooting blondie: he was actually pretty cautious, even if other people were too dazzled by his style to notice most of the time. Still, he trusted her enough to open the door, revealing what looked like an endless void. After taking an audible gulp, he walked into it, and Traci did the same, making sure to leave the door open and put up a note that said, “DO NOT CLOSE DOOR OR ENTER -Traci 13”.

They were able to walk while in this other space, despite the seeming lack of floor. Around them, items hovered in every direction. Many were mundane, like keys or socks or remote controls, though sometimes they would catch sight of something more amazing, like a brilliant gemstone or an ancient book. “You were wondering where we were going?” she said, finally answering his question. “I like to call this place ‘The Void of Lost Things’. It’s a work-in-progress, I’m still workshopping it.”

He didn’t laugh at the joke, instead walking up to one of the more normal floating items, a pair of pants. “ _ Incroyable _ ! Then, all these things were lost by someone,  _ non _ ?” Traci nodded her head, happy to see he’d quickly gotten the idea. He looked around, the space they were in seemingly without end, the only exit the door that still showed the grounds of UA High on the other side. “Where did you hear of this place?”

She’d been expecting a question like that, and started her answer with a shrug of her shoulders. “I didn’t. I’m pretty sure I’m the first person to find it.” That got Aoyama’s attention, and smiling with well-deserved pride, she told him, “I was studying portal magic, and decided to see if I could combine different magic systems to try and reach some new place. I combined what seem to be the right ingredients, and found this place.”

It was cool for her to see that look of genuine awe on Aoyama’s face. But then it faded, and he looked almost...sad? “Do you think...” he started to say, not looking at her, “...it is possible for  _ moi _ to learn magic?” Traci winced. It wasn’t the first time she’d heard someone ask her that question, she doubted it would be the last. The average person’s understanding of magic was so limited, and often so wrong, that trying to correct it all was a nightmare.

“Let’s head outside, and I’ll see, okay?” They walked out of the void together, and once back on the material plane, Traci shut the door and erased the symbols, turning the portal back into chalk. Once there, she faced her assigned partner, who was still looking down. “Okay, so, let me summarize Magic 101 for you: it has to come from somewhere. It looks easy if you don’t know anything, but actual magic is breaking all the rules of reality. For that to work, you’ve got to have an in.”

He seemed to take that information in, but still didn’t seem to understand. “Then, what about your classmate, Raven? Where does her magic come from?” It was only with that question that Traci started to hear the desperation in his voice. Was there more to his questions than he realized.

Scratching her head, Traci told him, “Well, she and I don’t really talk shop, but as far as I can tell she’s using two sources. On the one hand, I’m pretty sure she’s a sorceress. That means her body can generate and use magical energy on its own, the same way it produces chemical energy for her cells. It’s a bit hard on the metabolism, and it’s something you have to be born with.” There was way more to it than that, but this wasn’t the afternoon for drumming into her friend exactly how magical metaphysics worked. “On the other hand, she’s got a sponsor, which is usually called dark magic. That means she has someone who can fuel her magic or even teach her specific kinds of spells. Sponsors don’t actually have to be evil, despite the bad reputation the field has. That said, most of the ones offering magic out there aren’t exactly the nicest types, and you’ve got to give up something in return.”

Generally speaking, Traci avoided telling people about warlocks, just because she knew they’d be tempted to seek out a sponsor so they, too, could shoot magical energy out of their hands. Aoyama looked like he was starting to understand what she was saying. “So, one can be born with  _ le _ magic, or make a deal to receive it. What else is there,  _ mon amie _ ?” Still, there was some edge to his voice that Traci wasn’t liking.

Holding up two fingers, to represent the two schools she’d already talked about, she raised a third as she told him, “Then there’s druidism. Environments generate a magic all their own, and it’s possible to draw it out and use it for yourself. Technically, anyone can use it, but the less you feel connected to nature, the more preparation and research you need to pull it off.” A fourth finger joined the others. “The most famous by name is wizardry. Anyone can do that, but it takes a ton of book learning. It’s all about finding ways to exploit the mechanics between systems to get your effect. Lots of rituals, incantations, reagents, all that junk.”

He looked more hopeful at hearing about those, but Traci wasn’t sure he should. Aoyama didn’t seem like the type who was super in-touch with his surroundings, nor would the prospect of years of study before seeing any results appeal to him. Holding up the last finger, Traci finished, “The last is the rarest. Some people’s have so much presence, so much force of personality, they can warp reality with it. The strongest just need their thoughts, but most of them need a medium, usually music.” Thinking about it, she had to admit, “If you learned how to be a musician, you might be able to pull that off.”

Having laid out to Aoyama all the options, it looked like he was still thinking something over. But rather than voicing that to Traci, he instead asked, “What kind of magic do you use, Traci?”

This was another question Traci had to answer all the time. “I like to call myself an Urban Sorceress,” she told him with a confident grin. “In practice, I dabble in all five branches. I was born with a bit of sorcery, I’ve made a few deals with minor spirits for extra juice, I’m great at pulling energy from cityscapes, I know more than my share of tips and tricks, and I can do wonders with a harmonica.” Traci had always wondered why some people specialized, when knowing a bit of everything was so much more versatile. Unable to help herself any longer, she asked, “Aoyama, why all the magic questions? Something’s up.”

That last part wasn’t a question, and she knew Aoyama could see that. Letting out a much heavier sigh than the foppish teen usually gave, he explained, “I’ve had some,  _ comment dire _ , issues, with my Quirk. I sometimes fear I will not be able to be a hero with it alone. I thought, perhaps, magic may help.” He looked around as he talked, clearly hoping no one overheard what he was telling her.

It wasn’t the kind of sentiment Traci had expected from Aoyama. The guy seemed so full of himself, the idea he might feel insecure about the whole belly-button-lazer thing really surprised her. Still, she gave him a smile and lightly punched one shoulder in a friendly way. “Listen, speaking from someone with a  **lot** of experience in the spooky stuff, you can totally dabble in it if you want. It could really give you an edge. But it comes with risks too.” Her eyes stopped focusing on any one thing, staring off into the middle distance. “Villains are one thing, y’know? But magic...magic makes you realize there are way more dangerous things out there. Things that will pay attention to you when you know too much.” She involuntarily shivered. “Plus, you get wrapped up with the craziest people. Deadman. The Phantom Stranger. Detective Chimp.” They shared a laugh at that, and she resolved not to tell him she wasn’t joking about the monkey.


	26. Chapter 21-Ducks and Races

Even though, on the whole, Tsuyu Asui hadn’t spent a lot of time with her assigned partner, she was going to miss Joseph Wilson when he went back to the United States. The mute teen was spending his last Sunday in Japan with Tsuyu, this time walking together to a local park, each having bought some seeds to feed the ducks. After Tsuyu’s team had lost in the second round of the combat exercises to Midoriya’s team, their regular practices were cancelled.

As they reached their destination and sat near a pond, Tsuyu’s mind turned to her role in the team. She wasn’t about to complain about all the extra free time she’d gotten lately, which had given her more time to get to know Joseph. But at the same time, Tsuyu felt a little bitter than Bakugo was just giving up on the team dynamic. He’d been a harsh leader, as expected, but he’d also gotten results, from all of them. He’d quickly singled out Tsuyu as his effective second-in-command, and as good as complimented her for her honesty in critiquing him and her well rounded skills.

In a weird way, Bakugo had almost started to feel like an older brother to her. Suddenly, Tsuyu got a tap on her shoulder, and she turned to look at Joseph, who had written a question for her. “What’s on your mind?” The query made Tsuyu realize she must have looked very lost in thought, and felt she’d been a bit rude in just ignoring the person she’d come to the park to spend time with.

“A lot of things,” she said simply. “My team, Bakugo, siblings.” The second she’d made that connection with how she thought of her explosive classmate, the thought of her own siblings came to mind. Smiling a little, she told Joseph, “I have two, a brother and a sister. Both of them are younger than me, and they look up to me a lot.” Then, Tsuyu put a long finger to her chin and asked Joseph, “What about you?”

To most people, Joseph’s reaction to the question would have seemed mild, just a blink, but Tsuyu had sharper senses than that. She could see the subtle clues on his face, showing he winced a little. Almost half of her questions about his life gave him that reaction, even if he didn’t realize it. After pausing for a second, he wrote out, “Two. Also a brother and a sister.”

Unsure why he’d reacted that way to the question, Tsuyu continued on her line of thought. “That’s a neat coincidence. Are you the oldest too? What are they like?” So many of her classmates were only children, it was actually really exciting for her to be able to talk to someone in a similar position to her own.

Flipping to a new page to write his next response, Joseph’s pencil moved smoothly across the page, flowing like water in a river. Tsuyu’s heart fell when he turned it back towards her, so she could see his answer. “I’m the middle child, though in another respect I’m the oldest. My older brother, Grant, died a few years ago. My younger sister, Rose, is still a kid, and was young enough when it happened that I’m the only older brother she knows.”

It was a lot to read about. Tsuyu had known for a while now that there was a lot of darkness in Joseph’s past, but learning about a dead brother hit home from Tsuyu. Trying not to tear up, she decided to share something just as personal. “I’m...scared. A lot of the missions we go on are really dangerous, and some of my classmates have come close to being killed. I know when I become a Pro Hero, the threats will only get worse. I don’t want to leave my siblings behind without me to be there for them anymore.” Sure, they were old enough now that there wasn’t really a risk of them forgetting about her...but Tsuyu almost felt like a third parent to the kids. That fear of what would happen without her refused to go away.

When she turned her head away from the ducks nibbling on the food they’d brought for them to look at Joseph, she was surprised to see him smiling. On his pad, was a short, simple message: “You’re going to be a great hero.” After that, the two sat quietly and fed the ducks, happy to have opened up a little.

* * *

Considering the third and final round of the Joint Combat Exercise was just a day away, it was no surprise that, weekend or not, Victor Stone was in training most of the day. The same was true for his assigned partner, Mezo Shoji. The only time they could find to meet up was in the late afternoon, just before sunset. At Vic’s suggestion, they took a trip to a nearby arcade to relax a little bit. To Vic’s surprise, it seemed like Shoji hadn’t played a lot of games before.

They went from machine to machine, doing their best to ignore the stares they were getting from the other patrons. Neither broached the subject of the next day’s contest. After all, sharing strategy would have been pretty bad form. That said, Vic was confident. Well, he was almost always confident, but specifically for the upcoming match.

The rules, as they’d been explained at the end of the second round, were pretty simple: they’d be in another simulation environment, something like the USJ, and it would be a full five-on-five fight. No match-ups, no leaders picking things. Each team would be released in the area, and given the task of beating the other team. A team would if their leader surrenders or if everyone on the team reaches the point where they can’t fight anymore.

Vic had nothing against the other team. Midoriya seemed like a smart guy, and the people on his team were nothing to sneeze at. But they’d only been a team for a few weeks. The New Teen Titans had spent almost a full year working together, and they were the top-rated team in their year. More than that, if they kept it up, they had a chance at taking the original Teen Titan’s place as the best team in the school’s history. They’d fought HIVE agents, robots, and even a 5th Dimensional Imp together.

As Vic won the third round in a row on a fighting game, Shoji said something. “So, you’re that cocky about winning, huh?” The words had come from a mouth that sprouted from the arm closest to Vic, with teeth and everything. Vic had been around Shoji enough not to shiver in panic every time he did something like that, but it had been hard. Dude had a freaky Quirk.

They moved away from that arcade machine, and Vic picked out a racing game to try out next. Sitting side by side, as the race started, Vic decided to answer the question. “I wouldn’t say I’m cocky, I just know we’re going to win.” Part of his words were there to rile up his opponent, but he also just plain thought they were true.

Shoji didn’t say anything back for a while, focusing instead on learning the controls as they raced. For the first few laps, Vic was comfortably in first place, but out of the corner of his eye he could see on the map as Shoji started catching up to him, moving past the AI to get further in the ranks. “I think you’re underestimating us, especially Midoriya,” Shoji told him after moving into second place. “I know that, for the most part, you Titans students get more combat experience than we do. But Midoriya...”

The race was nearing its end, but Vic was starting to see Shoji coming up behind him, trying to get by him and into the lead. “We might all be training to be heroes, but there’s not a person in class who hasn’t noticed what Midoriya has been through. He’s fought more villains than anyone else, and that’s not just happenstance. He runs  **towards** danger, risks his life without even thinking about it. Then, when he gets there, he’s smart enough to get out of there alive. Even if some of us don’t want to admit it, we admire him. That’s why I’m happy to be on his team.” Just as Shoji finished what he had to say, Vic messed up a drift, giving Shoji the opening to move past him, just in time to take 1st place. Then, the multi-armed hero rose from his seat and said, “We should head back. We’ve got a big day tomorrow.” Vic laughed as they left the arcade. Maybe this fight wouldn’t be quite as one-sided as he’d been expecting.


	27. Interlude 5

The meeting place was a cafe, in the city not far from UA. None of the other staff members, nor any of the students of the school knew it was taking place. Toshinori Yagi, known by millions as All Might, the former Symbol of Peace, hadn’t completely lost the anonymity his more skeletal form brought him. Even after the world had seen it on television during his fight with All for One, it was nondescript enough for him to walk around in public without being mobbed by fans. The fact it was late on a Sunday evening helped too, Toshinori supposed.

He arrived at the cafe about ten minutes before the agreed upon time, but ended up being hassled by a waitress no less than six times about if he wanted to order yet before the other party arrived. Even without using his Quirk, Toshinori was always a tall man, standing more than a full head above most people. That tended to unnerve most, so he was hunched over more often than not to ease people’s concerns. The man who entered the cafe and approached Toshinori’s table was also a tall man, and also one who utilized poor posture to seem more unassuming to others. For just a second, as Toshinori got up from the table to shake his hand, both stood at their full heights, and took a moment to feel satisfied that they were the same height, able to look from eye to eye. “Good to see you, Toshinori,” the newcomer said with a warm, friendly voice.

Toshinori mirrored the other man’s smile, though he knew it must have looked far less affable thanks to his frightening visage. “You too, Clark.” The waitress noticed that his awaited friend had finally arrived and quickly hussled over. Without Clark Kent even having to look at the menu, Toshinori told the waitress, “I’ll take some green tea, and he’ll have a slice of pie.” The girl, who couldn’t have been older than any of Toshinori’s students, gave him an odd look, but when she looked at the other man at the table and didn’t see even the hint of a complaint, she shrugged and left them to themselves. Toshinori was wearing one of his teacher shirts, a bright yellow one that matched his chair, but without any tie. The attempt at looking casual was marred somewhat by his odd appearance, though he didn’t look like he particularly cared. He looked up and down at the man he’d waited for, and said to him, “You’re looking well.”

To many, that would be an understatement. Clark Kent looked radiant. Wearing the slacks, button-up shirt, and glasses the world’s other most famous hero used to try and blend into a crowd, something about the alien made him look too healthy and positive to be real. The comment made him flinch, though, and he ran a large hand through his black hair. “I’m sure I look that way.” Then, he looked out the window, into the street as a few people walked by at night. “It’s amazing to think how long it’s been. Since we first met, I mean.”

The words sent Toshinori into a similar feeling of nostalgia. He joined Clark at looking out at the world they’d help create through their hero work. “Yeah. It really has.” Then, something occurred to Toshinori out of nowhere that led to him having to suppress a chuckle, then a blood-filled hacking cough. When he’d recovered, Clark looking at him in concern, Toshinori waved a hand. “Don’t worry so much, I’m fine. Just remembered the old days. Like when we first met.” It had been over thirty years since then. All Might had been new to America at the time, and his time in Metropolis coincided with an attempt to make his costume more dark and edgy, to fit with trends at the time. It had led to the Man of Steel mistaking All Might for a villain, and a brief but powerful struggle between the two.

Despite Toshinori’s attempts at defusing the tension with reminiscing over old follies, Clark was still looking at him with overly honest eyes. “Toshi, you don’t look  _ fine _ to me.” There was an unspoken plea in his words, one that Toshinori didn’t want to hear.

“Don’t look inside me with you X-Ray Vision, Clark. And don’t make a big fuss out of this. We tried already, remember? I’m satisfied with doing what I can with the time I have left.” When Clark had first learned of the injuries All Might had sustained in his fight with All for One, something that only happened because Sir Nighteye had tattled behind All Might’s back, the fellow hero had done everything he could to help. Kryptonian Technology, magic, and everything STAR Labs had at their disposal all failed to find any way to treat All Might that wasn’t worse than what he was already going through. Clark clearly didn’t want to drop the topic, but reluctantly seemed to do so anyway. Feeling a little less happy with his old friend, Toshinori leaned back in his seat and asked, “So, are you here because of the Titans kids? I looked for your boy, but didn’t see him.”

Now it looked like Toshinori had thrown All Might off his game. Looking as aggravated as Clark ever did, namely slightly annoyed, he explained, “My son is still eight, Toshi. And if you meant Connor, he’s in the class visiting Charles’s school.” Raising one hand to pinch the bridge of his nose, he added, “I’ve also told you before that I like to think of him as a younger brother, instead of a son. You never make that mistake with Peter.” They took a small break from talking as the waitress brought over what they’d ordered, and Clark began to dig into his slice of apple pie.

Toshinori took a sip from his tea, which was exactly as bitter as he enjoyed it, and said, “Sorry, Clark, but in my defense Peter’s clone looks like he’s the same age as him.” He felt bad anyway, as the topic of the young clone was a touchy one for Clark. Try as he might, Toshinori didn’t really understand Clark’s position on the whole thing, but then again he’d never had anyone successfully clone him. So far, at least. “But I was wondering why you called the meeting. If it’s not about the exchange program, what is it?” Despite being old friends, ever since Toshinori had stepped down from hero work they’d seen each other less and less often.

Clearly not a big fan of being put on the spot like that, Clark winced and took a deep breath, ready to drop something heavy. “Do you remember, all those years ago, when you contacted me? We met up at my favorite diner in Smallville. That was when you told me about what had happened with your archenemy, how your days as a hero, and on this Earth, were limited.” Suddenly feeling more tense, Toshinori nodded, and took another sip of tea to brace himself. “Well...this is like that. You probably didn’t hear about it, but Luthor sabotaged a mission to near the Sun, recently. I seemed to stop what he’d had in mind, but fell for the real trap. I’ve absorbed too much solar radiation too quickly. I’m...dying. Stronger than ever. But dying.” Despite the words he was saying, Clark didn’t look like a man who was dying. But, Toshinori realized, that might be because of what he’d said, how he was basically dying from his own powers.

“How long do you have?”

“They’re not sure. At most, six months.”

“Who have you told?”

“Aside from you? Bruce, Diana, Barry and J’onn. I’m planning on seeing Steve, Tony, and a few others in the coming week. Maybe Enji too, though if you’d prefer to tell him, I understand.”

Toshinori didn’t know what to do. He felt...unmoored. When his own death had been made clear, he’d felt no fear, only a desire to do everything he could with his time left. Now, all Toshinori wanted to do was call in every favor he’d ever earned to try and help Clark Kent. Was this how Clark had felt when Toshi had told him all those years ago? It was almost enough to make Toshinori laugh. The shoe was on the other foot. “No, you should tell Todoroki. He might take it worse from me than from you.” Then, Toshinori realized something else, and lost his breath. “W-what about Lois?” Unlike Toshinori, Clark had a wife. A child.

For the first time since telling Toshinori about his impending death, Clark looked conflicted. “She’s...taking it as well as could be expected. She always thought she’d be ready for it, of course, with what I do. We do. But we’ll get through it. She’ll get through it.” Even if Clark didn’t, Toshinori found himself agreeing with that sentiment. Lois Lane was one of the toughest people he’d met in his entire life.

It was still difficult for Toshinori to wrap his head around. A world without All Might, that would probably be okay. Japan would have some growing pains, but young Midoriya was working to fill those shoes. But a world without a Superman? “Do you remember...” Toshinori said, struggling to keep it together. “Do you remember when you offered my membership, into the Justice League?” It hadn’t been the first team to seek out Toshinori. By that time, he’d already turned down the Avengers and the X-Men. Clark nodded, smiling at the thought of the time gone by. “I was tempted. I don’t know if I ever told you that, but I was tempted to take you up on the offer, leave All for One for another day, or try to take him down with the League at my back.”

“You’re still an honorary member,” Clark reminded him.

“Ha!” Toshinori laughed, and a small burst of blood tried to escape with the sound, only stopped by a quick hand with a napkin in it. “Me and the Phantom Stranger.” It was easy, Toshinori knew, for most people to look at the world at that moment and fear the worst. The League of Villains was gaining power in Japan, and in the rest of the world, the Legion of Doom was solidifying a grasp on everywhere it could. But despite all that, even knowing the man across from him at the table was heading toward Death’s door, Toshinori felt hope. “I think...we’ll be okay. One of the best things about being a teacher has been being able to see the next generation of heroes. They’re going to outdo us all, I think.”

He’d meant every word, but it didn’t take Super-Hearing to tell there was more in Toshinori’s heart than the optimistic words he’d said. Reaching out to put a solid hand on his shoulder, Clark said, “It’s okay to cry, Toshi.” It was a rare event for Toshinori Yagi to let down his walls and let himself cry, but Clark tended to inspire such rare events, even in him. Japan’s former #1 hero cried into his friend’s shoulder, and didn’t know when he’d be able to stop.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the only interlude that was completely changed from my initial plan. Originally, it was going to be about Iida's brother being visited in the hospital by the Phantom Stranger, but I realized at some point I'd missed out on putting All Might and Supes together, and knew I had to rectify that. I threw in the passing mention to the Stranger to make up for his loss of a chapter.


	28. Chapter 22-Joint Combat Exercise, Round 3

They had trained for this. Ever since they’d been put together as a team, Tim Drake had done his best to be a leader. To prepare for every eventuality. Inside the fake city the school was using for their combat simulation drills, where the final round of the Joint Combat Exercise was taking place, Tim watched from the shadows. As he’d expected, Izuku Midoriya was with the rest of his team, walking down a city street, looking for Tim’s team.

He could understand why the thought had occurred to Midoriya, why he might have thought staying together would be their best chance at winning. Considering the make-up of Quirks on his team, they definitely were stronger as a unit than as individuals. Which was exactly why Tim wasn’t going to play that game with him. From the second they’d entered the city, the New Teen Titans had split up, each knowing who their target was. Even if Tim couldn’t see all of them, he knew his team was nearby, watching this like he was, and waiting for their turn to jump into the fray.

Changeling started it off. Having turned into a mouse hiding on a nearby rooftop, he leaped from the building and quickly shapeshifted into large green pterodactyl, and before any of Midoriya’s team could react, grabbed Jiro by the arms and carried her off into a different part of the city. While the UA students were still off-balance from that, Raven emerged from the shadows, and used her magic to hoist Uraraka with her into an alley. Cyborg’s attack was less delicate, charging in and grabbing Shoji like the football star he’d once been, taking the boy with the strange Quirk off the field. Last to go was Kaminari, who was carried out of the way by Starfire. 

That just left Midoriya standing in the street, and judging by the green lightning arcing off his body, he was preparing to go rescue his friends. That was where Tim came in. Throwing a smoke bomb into the street, Tim acrobatically jumped from a window, fired a grappling cable to swing down, and while the smoke was there threw out the gadgets he’d need to survive this fight. “Sorry about this, Midoriya,” Tim said, breathing heavily already from just the idea of what he was about to do.

“One for All: Full Cowl 20%! Delaware Smash Air Force!!” Seconds before the strike came, Tim had already jumped out of the way. Even that was barely sufficient, as a huge blast of air smashed through the area Tim had just been standing in, blowing away the smoke that covered the area. Just before it was completely gone, Tim hit a button on his belt to activate something important. It was because of that that, when Midoriya could see the street once more, there was not one Robin there, but a dozen. Looking between them, Midoriya no longer looked like the kind-hearted hero fanboy Tim had come to know. The fierceness in his expression took Tim’s breath away, and for just a second he wondered if his plan would work. Looking between the various Tim’s standing around him, Midoriya asked, “Holograms?”

It made him happy to see Midoriya was quick on the uptake. Letting out a quick laugh, one that came out simultaneously from all the various Tim’s at the same time, he replied, “Yeah, they’re a useful support item. And more handy than you might think.” Underneath each hologram and the real Tim, there was a small sphere. The one under the real Tim was constantly scanning him, while the others were broadcasting what he did above them simultaneously. Their programming was more complex than just that, but it was up to Midoriya to learn that firsthand. Before Midoriya could prepare himself properly, Tim threw out a birdarang, something all his light-produced copies did as well. The throw was identical, but because all the Tim’s were standing in different places, the projectiles were heading to different places. Midoriya used the second he had to jump away from where he’d been standing.

It was a miscalculation. Doing so placed him right in the flight path of the real birdarang Tim had thrown. Midoriya’s reflexes were still good enough to avoid a head-on collision, but the support item still left a cut on Midoriya’s cheek, blood running down the side of his face. Tim had known he’d expect the real Tim to throw the birdarang directly at him, meaning he’d dodge. Doing his best to aim for where he expected Midoriya to flee to was the only hard part of the attack. In the silence following the surround-sound Robin attack, both Tim and Midoriya could hear the fights going on elsewhere in the empty cityscape. Looking between the various Tim’s around him, Midoriya grimaced. “So that was your plan? Separate us and take us out one-on-one?” It looked like he was calming down a little, and Tim felt like he could see the boy’s brilliant mind running the numbers inside his head.

Pulling out his quarterstaff and leaning on it, and watching all his holograms do the same, Tim smiled. “It was the best strategy to take you guys down. One-on-one, my team beats yours, easily. But if you want to save your friends from a harsh fight, you can just surrender.” That had been what Tim was really hoping for. After all, it got him a guaranteed victory, and there was no potential for anyone to get hurt. Plus, y’know, he still wasn’t 100% sure about fighting Midoriya. But he did his best not to let that show as he offered the idea to his opponent.

Instead of answering it directly, Midoriya just took a deep breath and said, “One for All: Full Cowl 8%!” After tamping down his Quirk, the young hero dashed towards the nearest Tim and spun out a roundhouse kick. It would have been a devastating blow if it had connected, and if that had been the real Tim. But Midoriya didn’t get to see either, because Tim dodged in a way that made all his copies do the same, taking the hologram Midoriya had attacked just outside of the attack’s range. Just when Tim was feeling confident about his dodge, Midoriya moved faster than Tim expected and flashed out a punch. It went right through the Tim hologram’s head. Taking a step back, Midoriya looked from that one to the rest of the Tim’s in the street.

Rolling another smoke bomb over his fingers, Tim tried to suppress a shiver of fear. Even as inexperienced with the Quirk as Midoriya was, One for All was still a dangerous Quirk to go up against. “Looks like you found one of them out,” Tim said, doing his best to appear cool and collected. “Let’s hope you remember which one that was!” Throwing another smoke bomb gave him a little bit of time before Midoriya dissipated it. Time Tim used to circle Midorya, changing the positions of himself and all his holograms. When the smoke cleared, Midoriya had no way to no which one he’d already checked.

The fight continued for quite a while, though any good sense of actual time disappeared while Tim did his best to keep things going. There was no way he was going to actually beat Midoriya in hand-to-hand combat, so he had to use every trick he had to keep him from knowing which was the real Tim, and to keep him busy. It was a delaying tactic, one meant to give the rest of Tim’s team time to win their fights then come help him against Midoriya. It was getting to the point where Tim expected one of his friends to come join him when suddenly there was a chirping sound coming from Midoriya’s glove.

Tim’s opponent grinned immediately, brightly with relief shining in his eyes. Moving his other hand to quickly hit a small circular button that blended in with the rest of his glove material, Midoriya was rewarded with Uraraka’s voice. “We’re ready, Deku! Now, it’s your turn!” Tim froze. How had he missed this different addition to his costume? Had he been overconfident? Before Tim could think anything more than that, he had to watch as Midoriya powered up his Full Cowl and disappeared, moving so fast that Tim had no chance of tracking where he’d gone. The words that had come from Midoriya’s teammate ran through Tim’s mind, and he was forced to wonder as he ran through the street, turning off his holograms: what had Midoriya planned?

* * *

From the first second Izuku knew his team would be in the final round, and who they’d be going up against, he started his analysis. He got his hands on every scrap of information he could regarding every member of the other team, and ran things in his head, over and over again. It didn’t take long for him to put together his biggest obstacle. Izuku trusted his team, and he’d trained with them a lot to do everything he could to make them a strong fighting force. But they had two major disadvantages.

First, they were facing a group far more experienced in teamwork. It was guaranteed they’d have more experience working together, more experience cooperating, and more experience operating tactically as a team. Second, on average, Tim’s team was just stronger in a fight than Izuku’s. The only one who could go toe-to-toe with most of them individually was Izuku himself, and that was how Izuku managed to figure out what Tim’s strategy would be. He’d pick them off, one by one, and have them go mano-e-mano against heroes they didn’t have a chance at defeating.

Finding a solution required them to get creative. After reaching out to Mei Hatsume from the Support Class, Izuku barely got the prerequisite support items installed in their costumes. They were team communicators and locators, and they would be how he worked around Tim’s plan.

Soon after the exercise began, things started to play out like Izuku had expected. One by one, his team members were taken away from him, leaving him to fight Tim. Izuku guessed the Quirkless hero was waiting for his team to come and back him up, but in a way Izuku was playing the same game. He could easily escape from Tim whenever he needed to, but he had to get the signal from his team first.

That was why, when the electronic chirp came from one glove and he heard Uraraka give him the agreed upon signal of “We’re ready, Deku! Now, it’s your turn!” he called upon One for All and sped off.

Since it was clear to Izuku what Tim would do, he had to plan a counter strategy. If his team didn’t stand a chance in one-on-one, then they’d need to even the odds. As soon as they could, each of his team members had been instructed to find a way to stun or otherwise escape from their opponent. Then, they could use the support tracker to find each other. With the four of them together, they could signal Izuku and get to work.

Having quickly used Full Cowl to scale a building and scan the skies, Izuku found who he was looking for: Starfire, in the air and looking for Kaminari. She was the other team’s heaviest hitter, and keeping her away from them was Izuku’s top priority. Before she caught sight of him, Izuku charged up one leg at 20% and called out, “Detroit Smash!” while kicking her. Any human being without a Quirk to enhance their toughness would have been hurt by such a kick. Starfire wasn’t human, and while the blow sent her flying, Izuku was pretty sure there was no chance of that having taken her out of the fight.

Sure enough, soon she was flying back towards him, flinging Starbolts and keeping her distance. Luckily, Deku’s speed helped him dodge, and his specially designed gauntlets helped him fire back air blasts to counter her. They kept at it for a little while when another message came from his glove for him, this time from Kaminari. “That green kid is out!” That made Izuku let out a sigh of relief. Changeling’s versatility made him a scary foe, getting him out of the way first was imperative.

But Izuku wasn’t able to rest easy for long. While still fighting Starfire, only peripheral vision and quick reflexes helped him avoid a birdarang from behind him. Sure enough, Tim had climbed up to the roof as well, and a quick scan around confirmed that Cyborg was also on a nearby roof and heading closer. Soon, Izuku was surrounded on every side, and Tim shouted, “ **Titans, together!** ”

It was only thanks to the year he’d been having that Izuku was able to succeed in this insane idea. Now, he wasn’t attacking except to push his opponents back and parry them before they could strike. He was entirely on the defensive, avoiding their myriad of projectiles as nimbly as he could. He’d had to dial back his Full Cowl to just 5% to avoid burning himself out, but already he was starting to get tired. It was only after a few minutes of avoiding the team of Titans that Starfire looked worried. “Where is Raven and Changeling?” That made the other members of her team widen their eyes, and the question was soon answered by another communication from Izuku’s team.

“Raven’s out of the game!” Jiro said, a smile in her voice clear to be heard by everyone even over the device’s tiny speaker. The Titans still in the exercise blanched at hearing that, and refocused their attack onto Izuku once more.

When properly combined, the Quirks of Izuku’s team made for a perfect guerrilla strike squad. Jiro’s earphone jacks were great for locating targets and with her support items she could stun people for short amounts of time. Shoji was a great grappler thanks to his strong physique and extendable limbs. Uraraka’s ability to make people float was a strong neutralizer of their offensive abilities, and when combined with Kaminari’s new targeted electricity attacks it was the one-two punch needed to quickly make work of surprised targets.

Of course, the four of them would have a hard time if they were attacked by one than one of the Titans team at the same time. That’s why Izuku was there, on the rooftop, drawing attention and fighting as many of them at once as he could. The more they focused on him, the less of a chance they had to ruin things for the other group. Still, now all their targets were up there with Izuku, so after dodging a sonic blast from Cyborg, Izuku sent a message to his team. “Everyone else is with me, at the rooftops.” He’d hoped he said it quiet enough not to be caught by Tim, but just to make sure they didn’t stray away, Izuku upped his game back up to 8% and went on a renewed attack.

He was getting close to his limit, while having to switch back to dodging, when all of a sudden he heard a shout from behind him, Cyborg’s voice. Before the rest of his team could do anything, Cyborg had been surprised by Uraraka and was floating in the air. A quick fire from Kaminari’s support item, and an insane amount of electricity flooded the robot man’s circuits, overloading his systems and sending him sprawling to the concrete roof, unable to lift himself.

Now, it was down to two on five. Well, more like two on four. A quick look at Kaminari confirmed he’d finally bypassed his electricity limit and was too goofy to continue battle. “Uraraka, I need a boost!” Izuku called, and in seconds she was there, using her Quirk to send him up into the air. Using small blasts of One for All, Izuku was able to get around in the air pretty well, something they’d practiced over the last month. It wasn’t quite as natural as Starfire’s flight, but it allowed him to push as hard as he could against her while the rest of the team went after Tim.

The aerial fight was dizzying, to say the least, and it was genuinely hard for Izuku to mount much of an offensive. His opponent was much more natural in the air, and even without support from teammates she was a fierce fighter. Izuku didn’t want to go too far and risk breaking a bone again, not after he’d gone so long without doing it. Luckily, just as he was worrying about not being able to dodge anymore and being hit by one of Starfire’s savage punches, he heard Tim shout, “We surrender!”

Looking down, he’d been grappled by Shoji, with Uraraka and Jiro ready to fight further against him if necessary. Letting out the breath he’d been holding for so long now, Izuku waited for Uraraka to release her Quirk, so he could fall to the ground and just let go. He didn’t even hear the announcement of his team winning, nor was he conscious afterwards to hear the congratulations from some of the teachers, including All Might.

Regardless of whether he heard it then or later, either way Izuku’s plan had worked.

UA had won against the Titans.


	29. Chapter 23-Stars and Nights

As the time before the American hero students returned to their home country rapidly approached, Tenya Iida was unsure of how he felt about it all. In concept, he couldn’t deny that having the chance to share experiences with those from another culture, and to get a taste of the kinds of things their education focused on, were valuable for their growth. But the entire ordeal had done much to show how much Iida personally had to grow, as a hero and as a potential leader of others.

He had been given a team of classmates, put in charge of their success in the joint training exercises. But they’d lost the first round of the combat exercises, and done poorly in the investigative test as well. Tenya knew his team wasn’t angry at him over these losses, but that didn’t stop his disappointment with himself in the slightest.

There was also the matter of Avery Ho, his assigned partner. In many ways, she was everything he struggled to fight as the class representative of 1-A. Selfish, short-sighted, and arrogant. It was clear that Avery always thought she knew what was best for everyone around her, when she bothered to think about them at all. He constantly found her demeanor positively unheroic.

But there was another side to her. She had confidence, far more than Tenya had, and not only in herself. It was clear she trusted her teammates, and even Tenya himself, despite the fact they didn’t know each other very long. She was quick to smile, and had a knack for cheering up those around her. Even the remarkably stiff-lipped Tenya found himself smiling more and more in her presence. He couldn’t have imagined it a few weeks ago, but as he went over to her dorm room after classes ended for the day, Tenya realized he was going to miss her greatly.

“...no, I haven’t had any changes with my Quirk.” The voice was Avery’s, and it was coming through the wall of her room, as Tenya stood outside in the hallway. He didn’t want to be eavesdropping, but he found he couldn’t bring himself to move after he started to hear her talking. After all, they’d agreed on this time, yet she was busy. Therefore, he would wait for her to finish her conversation. Even in his head, it was a bit hard for Tenya to argue that this didn’t make him look good. “I know. I know. Please, you don’t have to tell me again how much money it took to get me this Quirk, you’ve told me before...I’ve given you all the data I’ve gathered, I’ll let you know when I have more.”

It sounded like that was the last thing Avery wanted to say, and Tenya soon heard what he believed to be the sound of her throwing her phone against a wall. Realizing this wasn’t going to get any less awkward, Tenya stepped up to the door and rapped his knuckles on it. “May I enter?” Avery grunted, which he took as her unsophisticated way of affirming a response, so he opened the door and found her sitting on her bed, looking at the wall, clearly annoyed.

“You heard all of that?” Avery didn’t look at Tenya as she asked the question, and Tenya wasn’t sure if she was angry at who she was talking to, Tenya, or both.

Feeling more awkward than he had in quite a long time, Tenya coughed to try and clear the tension in the room before admitting. “Only some of it.” After taking a breath, he looked at Avery with serious eyes. “I trust you, as a hero and a friend, and I hope you would say the same of me. If you choose to disclose anything to me, know it will be kept with my utmost discretion.” The truth was, Tenya was quite curious to learn what she meant by ‘getting her Quirk’, because it didn’t sound as though she was referring to the natural process by which Quirks revealed themselves.

In response to Tenya’s open display of friendship and trust, Avery rolled her eyes and grinned at him. “I appreciate it, but can you say anything without sounding like you ate a thesaurus?” Feeling embarrassed, Tenya was ready to give a heated reply, but Avery sped over that and started saying something else. “That was STAR Labs calling, the one from Central City. It’s where I’m from.” Even in Japan, STAR Labs was known as the foremost scientific research organization on the planet, renowned for their integrity and nonprofit status.

But what Avery had to do with them, Tenya didn’t understand. She didn’t seem to be the science-y type. “I lived there, in Central City I mean. That division of STAR Labs was the only lab in the world with the clearance to experiment on the Speed Force.” At first, Tenya had thought that was just the name of Avery’s Quirk, but as time went on he’d realized it referred to something else, the source of her Quirk’s gifts, though he still didn’t really understand it, and never truly would. “Something happened, about two years ago, and it infected a storm. Hundreds of people were struck by lightning, including me. We all got a connection to the Speed Force, whether we’d had Quirks before that or not. Before that day, I was Quirkless.” The way Avery said it, Tenya could tell this wasn’t something she shared with just anyone. In her tone, it almost felt like she was ashamed.

Tenya couldn’t wrap his mind around that. Quirkless people, in his opinion, were no less special than anyone else. Prejudice against them always made his blood run hot. Seeing Avery looking almost  _ scared _ to reveal that truth to him only made Tenya more determined to make it clear to her later that being Quirkless shouldn’t be a source of shame. But she continued anyway. “That connection cleared up with most people...but not for me. Suddenly, I had the same powers as the Flashes, a Quirk that connected me to the Speed Force, permanently. STAR Labs observed me for a while, and only let me start attending Titans with the promise I’d keep them informed on how my Quirk was doing.” There was a pause, where they both just breathed, before Avery said, her voice starting to crack at the edges, “So...yeah. That’s me.”

It was hard for Tenya not to focus on his anger. Ever since his brother’s injury, dealing with his anger, something he’d worked on his entire life, had begun to feel almost unmanageable. But new ways of coping were helping, and after taking a few seconds to steady himself, Tenya made an effort to be kind, rather than angry. Looking at Avery, he told her, “I’m grateful you told me that. Do not ever think hearing it made me think less of you. If anything, it’s made me only more impressed. Many of us have had our abilities since childhood, but you’ve only had two years to train yours. Avery Ho, I know you will become a wonderful hero.” For the first time since they’d met each other, the young woman’s walls fell down and she let herself cry into the arms of a friend, a steady hero willing to listen and be there for her, no matter what she had to say.

* * *

Mal Duncan had been waiting outside the dorm room in the chill autumn air for nearly half an hour before his assigned partner, Fumikage Tokoyami, exited his own dorm building and walked over. “My apologies,” the bird-headed young hero began, “I had not seen your message. I’m ready to follow you.” From the time they’d spent together so far during the trip, Mal was fairly confident the gothic teen had been deeply invested in one of his online horror stories, a regular late-night passtime.

After a few weeks of thinking it over, Mal had finally gathered his courage and texted his partner, asking to meet up outside the dorms. They weren’t leaving, it was far too late for that to be safe at nearly midnight. They were just going to walk around the campus. Mal started walking first, and Tokoyami quickly fell into step beside him. Both fairly stoic in nature, they trodded along for quite some time before one of them said anything to break the silence.

“Did you wish to speak to me regarding Karen?” Tokoyami asked, as they moved out of eyeshot from the dorms. “Forgive me if I’m wrong, but it seems as though the two of you have begun a proper courtship.” That was one thing that always made Mal want to laugh. Maybe it was the guy’s taste in literature, but Tokoyami tended to speak as if he were in a gothic horror novel. Way more fancy than Mal was used to from any of his own classmates.

Now, it was true that Mal and Karen were finally dating, and it was going pretty well so far. But that wasn’t the point of this nighttime walk. “No, Karen’s got nothing to do with it,” Mal began, as they started to approach the main school building. “It’s actually...” Then, Mal heard something odd. It was weirdly familiar, and sounded like it was coming from underneath him. “Do you hear anything?”

Tension filled the air as Tokoyami replied, “Yes, I do.” Both teen heroes stood ready for a fight...only for none to come. The sound abruptly stopped, and they were left feeling oddly foolish. “Perhaps,” Tokoyami suggested, as they picked up their walking once more. “It was a gopher, or some other creature that lives in the dirt of the Earth?” Mal thought that was the most likely scenario, though for some reason some part of his brain was still screaming that it had been a sound he specifically recognized.

They both tried to put that out of their heads, and Mal started saying something he’d had on his mind for a long time. “I’m...reconsidering being Herald.” That got a shocked look from Tokoyami, but Mal held up a hand and waved it around, as if to blow away his concerns. “Don’t worry, I still want to be a hero. It’s more...about my Quirk.” As he tried to think of exactly how to phrase his thoughts, Tokoyami waited patiently, not trying to jump in and ask questions just yet. “I’ve never really felt like my Quirk suits me, y’know? It’s good for mobility, and stealth, but I’m a brawler. I play football, and I’m good at it. Do you know what I mean?”

After a few seconds of consideration, Tokoyami weighed in. “I believe I understand what you are saying, even if I do not have the same issue. In fact, my Quirk suits me perhaps too well. I have always tended towards the dark and macabre, and my Quirk supports that interest by growing stronger the less light is around me. It is also strong enough, when I lose control, to turn things genuinely horrific. I’ve...” Tokoyami’s voice trailed off, and Mal could see a truly haunted look in his eyes. “...learned, firsthand, how careful I must be, to avoid going down a dangerous path.”

What he was saying reminded Mal of Raven, from Tim’s team. She too had a dark source of power she had to work hard on controlling. “Yeah, seems like we’ve got the opposite problem,” Mal concluded. “I’ve been looking into this hero, he’s retired now, called Guardian. I love his costume, and the way he fought...it speaks to me.” Looking back in the direction of the dorms, Mal let out a sigh. “As useful as my Quirk is, I’ve been coming to resent it. I don’t want it to define me. Plus, I really hate the trumpet.” It wasn’t completely unheard of for American heroes with Quirks to not use them in their hero work, and instead focus on a different style of heroism.

Still, Mal knew that if he wanted to change everything about his planned hero career, he’d face a lot of pushback. From his teachers, from his teammates, and even possibly from Karen. It was an uphill battle, to put it mildly. But suddenly Tokoyami’s hand was on his shoulder. “If being Herald doesn’t make you happy, then do not be Herald. Trust yourself.” Those were words Mal would try to cling to, in the coming months.


	30. Chapter 24-Words and Paper

Tomorrow was the day that all the Titans students would be returning to their home country. That thought weighed on Momo Yaoyarozu quite a bit throughout her school day, and the more she examined why that was, the more she knew things couldn’t stand as they had before. No, she had to do something important, otherwise she’d never get the chance again.

Despite being one of the class’s representatives, Momo left class first the second the bell rang signalling the school day had ended. Moving quickly with a steady power walk, she moved through the halls to the classroom where the Titans class finished their day. Her target had just left the room when she approached him. “Oh, hey Momo, what’s up?” Virgil Hawkins asked her, looking confused to see her so soon. They’d planned on one last study session/hang out that evening, after all.

But perhaps what surprised him more was how she looked. Using every ounce of her strength and willpower, Momo was doing everything she could to look serious and confident. Her back was straight, her gaze focused, her face stoic. “I need to talk to you about something.” Then she reached out and grabbed Virgil’s arm, dragging him into a nearby empty classroom for a serious discussion.

Now Virgil was completely off his game. He’d grown used to the timid, nervous Momo of the last two weeks, settling into his usual calm, relaxed vibe with her. Now he was the one sweating. Exactly as Momo had intended. “Mind telling me what’s so urgent?” he asked, crossing his arms to try and appear more cool that he felt.

After taking a small breath to psyche herself up, Momo started saying what she felt had to be said. “I greatly appreciate the opportunity this academic exchange has been, for the both of us. Since it is ending so soon, I realized there was still something I needed to tell you.” Virgil nodded to that, giving his ascent for her to continue. Letting a little warmth creep into her voice, Momo explained, “When you chose to open up to me about how you felt about my school’s motto, I didn’t know how to react. You were trusting me with something you knew I wasn’t going to like hearing, all because you wanted to help me.”

Looking back, Momo felt embarrassed by how she’d reacted. She felt like she’d been too defensive, not to mention weak in the first place for crying in a classroom over her own stress and nerves. “First, I want to let you know that I respect your viewpoint, and I’ve even come to better understand exactly what you mean with it. You’re right, I do think Plus Ultra’s methodology can hurt, even if it helps. Perhaps letting go and being more flexible, lowering my standards, would be better for me in that way.” It was a hard admission to make, but Momo felt it had to be said.

The way Virgil had talked to her on the bus almost a week previously, it was clear he’d come to regret sharing his thoughts with her the way he did. To better make clear what she was saying, Momo confidently told him, “I don’t think you were acting as though you were better than me when you told me what you did. I’m thankful for it.” From the gleam in Virgil’s eyes, it was clear he’d gotten her message loud and clear. But Momo wasn’t done yet. “That said, I won’t abandon Plus Ultra. For all the stress it puts me under, it also makes me better. It makes all of us better. As heroes, we’ll be put into impossible situations, and the only way to be prepared for that is to make ourselves able to do the impossible.” Having said everything she’d gone there to say, the inertia Momo had built up ran dry, and she found herself overrun with fear once more. “Does that all...make sense?” she asked Virgil, nervousness having returned to her voice.

She wasn’t even really able to look at Virgil at first, scared to see how he’d reacted to all she said. That tension melted away when he laughed. “Alright,” was all he had to say. Then he stood up and gave her a questioning look. “Am I going to be studying by myself, or were you still planning on joining me? Because while I hate to admit it, you’re a lot better with History than I am.” Happy to see that he had no complaints with her little rant, Momo nodded and they left to spend their last afternoon together in the school library, helping each other improve as heroes.

* * *

All in all, Grant Emerson had not had the same great experience with the trip to Japan that some of his classmates had. Of course, that didn’t really surprise him. Even to his teammates, Grant was a stand-offish, anti-social person. They’d learned to understand that and keep their distance. Even Mashirao Ojiro, his assigned partner, had quickly picked up the signals on that. That was, until he’d happened to run into Grant after he’d taken a shower. 

Grant did his best to never take off his mask, and always wore the most concealing clothing he could bear. After all, that was the only way to cover his scars. Even though he knew no one meant anything bad about it, Grant always got angry at just the thought of anyone staring at them. No one knew, but he’d attended more than one counseling session with his school’s resident therapist, Ms. Clay. She had told him that, considering how recent the...incident...had been, it was understandable he’d still be feeling emotionally raw regarding it. So long as he didn’t lash out, and did his best to take care of his own mental health, she was okay with Grant being by himself.

He’d been pretty good about sticking to that promise, until Ojiro had surprised him and seen everything. Grant had no clue how much Ojiro knew, now. The insults and threats carved into his skin were in English, and even if the Japanese teen knew how to read the words, it was unlikely he knew their implications. Despite the sheer violence of what had been done to him, Grant was sure that no Japanese-language websites had reported on it. After all, why would they care that some American kid had been tortured for days on end by a supervillain?

Sometimes, Grant wondered how Professor Zoom had learned what would hurt Grant the most. Had he really done research into his life, into how his adopted father had abused him? Or had it only been coincidence the super-speedy supervillain knew the exact words that would haunt Grant?

Still, that didn’t excuse Grant for exploding at Ojiro as he had. He’d been so angry, he’d even started drawing energy into his fists, as if ready to fight him. They hadn’t spoken since then, and Grant knew that was on him. Ojiro was assuredly scared to approach Grant, and Grant was in no mood to rehash his shameful display.

But with the return to the States rapidly approaching, Grant didn’t want their acquaintanceship to end in Grant’s anger. For a while, he’d been considering just going up to Ojiro and saying he was sorry, but Grant didn’t really trust himself to navigate that conversation without error. He knew his own limits, after all.

So instead, Grant left a note on Ojiro’s dorm room door. It read, ‘Sorry I yelled at you. I don’t like talking about what happened to me, so please don’t bring it up. See you tomorrow. -Grant’ It was handwritten in Grant’s blocky, yet precise script, and sure enough the next day, he was able to share companionable silence with his assigned partner peaceably. That was good enough for Grant.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So...I had a major brain fart in regards to Grant. Despite the fact I've read several series featuring the character, for some reason I confused some of his backstory with Roy Harper's, which led to me thinking he was part Native American. I've gone back to change past chapters to fit his actual backstory, and I feel like a bit of an idiot for messing that up in the first place.


	31. Chapter 25-Phones and Letters

If Toru Hagakure had to admit to anyone what her biggest flaw is, she’d probably hem and haw about it for a while before giving a real answer. But that real answer would be, undoubtedly, that she trusted too quickly, and too readily. Toru was aware that could be an issue sometimes, but it wasn’t something she had ever thought she’d wanted to change about herself. After all, even if it did mean sometimes people would disappoint her, Toru was the kind of glass-half-full person to look ahead to the genuinely good people who would be happy she so readily trusted them.

In the afternoon that the Titans students were going to be heading back home, Toru received quite the surprise that shook that faith she’d put in others. Toru was on the way back from combat class when she saw her assigned partner Tara Markov walking to her next class. She was about to call out to her when Tara’s phone started to ring, and when Tara looked at it the earth-manipulating Titans student froze with what looked like fear.

She quickly walked into an area where most people wouldn’t be able to see her, in the shadow between two buildings. Unable to help her curiosity, Toru followed her. Tara wasn’t able to tell, since Toru was still in her hero costume, sans gloves and boots, which she’d had to take off during class to surprise someone. Meaning she was completely invisible.

Once she was close enough to hear what Tara was saying, she was also able to hear the genuine acid in her voice. “-all me! Do you want to blow my cover?!” That confused Toru. Before, she hadn’t said anything because she didn’t want to be embarrassing and interrupt the phone call, but now she couldn’t help but eavesdrop on what Tara was saying. What did she mean by a ‘cover’?

She felt a little bad, because from how she’d hidden away and the way she was trying to keep her voice down, despite her evident anger, Tara was clearly trying to keep this private. But, on the other hand, Toru was a curious busybody who did enjoy spying on others, when she could. Apparently, whoever on the other end was saying something back, though Toru couldn’t hear what. Tara responded to them, “No, the reason I haven’t sent anything back recently has been because there’s nothing left to send back! All the files disappeared, so I’m  _ trying _ to stay quiet and not rock the boat.” There was a brief pause, and thens he added, “No, Cameron, that wasn’t a rock pun!”

Then, Tara held the bridge of her nose with her free hand, taking a deep breath before saying, “I am going to hang up now. Unless you want everyone to know what I’ve been up to, you had better stop trying to contact me. If you don’t, I will kill you, and Slade will laugh while I do it.” Then she hung up, checked her surroundings, and left. Toru was frozen, unable to move or even breathe in fear of what she’d overheard. The way Tara had said that...sounded pretty much like she hadn’t been joking. She was actually willing to kill someone...

Once Toru was sure she was safe, she carefully walked into the nearest school building and tried looking for a teacher. Luckily for her, she didn’t have to look long, as she soon bumped into Mr. Grayson, who was walking down the hall and didn’t see her. Because, Toru realized with annoyance, she was still completely invisible. The teacher was on his guard, but Toru squeaked, “Mr.  _ Grayson _ ! You can’t bump into me like that, it’s rude!” Once he recognized her voice, Mr. Grayson was back to his usual, happy-looking self, ready to say a quick apology and leave, but Toru grabbed his arm to stop him. “Wait! I have something to tell you!”

He must have heard the urgency in her voice, because he nodded his head and asked her to follow him into a nearby room, a classroom that usually was used for teached 3rd years math, but was currently unused thanks to some last-minute room shifting, caused by the Titans visitation. “Alright,” he told her, once they’d both sat down at desks next to each other, and he was doing his best to look at her approximately where her eyes should have been. “Tell me what’s up.”

Unable to stop herself, Toru repeated to him exactly what had happened: running into Tara, her getting the call, everything that was said on the call. The second she’d mentioned Tara’s name, Mr. Grayson looked like he was taking it more seriously, the smile gone from his face. By the time she was done talking, Toru had almost convinced herself that it wasn’t actually anything to worry about, just a normal conversation she’d over-thought about. “It’s probably nothing though, right? I’m just wasting your time...”

Toru started to get out of her seat, but Mr. Grayson stopped her. “Toru! Wait a second.” She sat back down, feeling more nervous than before. “What you just told me is very important, thank you for sharing it. But it’s also dangerous information, so what I’m about to tell you has to be a secret, okay?” Toru nodded her head, which he couldn’t see, but just assumed she’d done anyway. “We’ve known for a while now, but Tara Markov is a mole. Despite being enrolled in a hero school, she’s actually an agent of the Legion of Doom, working directly under Slade Wilson.”

Even at her most frightened before, Toru never would have guessed her assigned partner was actually a spy, a villain! “B-but!” Toru sputtered, starting to really freak out, “Then why is she here? It sounds like she was spying on us, and trying to steal information!!” UA had so many issues with leaks and villain attacks already, if this got out, they might shut the school down, Toru feared.

“That’s right,” Mr. Grayson confirmed. “But for now, we’re happier holding Tara’s true intentions as a closely guarded secret. We make sure to feed her a careful mix of things that aren’t relevant, plans already so far along they’re impossible to stop, and genuine harmful things, to keep them from realizing we know. Thank you for what you’ve told me, but please don’t act on it. Treat Tara like you did before.” It was a hard pill to swallow, and an odd order to try and understand, but Toru agreed anyway. It would be hard, knowing what she did now, to pretend that she was really sad to see Tara go, but luckily for her, there was no way Tara could see the conflict on her face.

* * *

The entirety of Class 1-A and the visiting Titans students, as well as the teachers involved in the program, were out on the track field, ready for goodbyes. A martian biological spaceship was parked on the field, and Garfield Logan watched as most people were either among their teams or with their assigned partner. There were hugs, tears, and lots of chatter.

Garfield was with his team, the New Teen Titans, sharing what they liked best about Japan. “I quite enjoyed the karaoke!” Starfire exclaimed, sounding out the last word by the syllable to make sure she was pronouncing it correctly.

“Of course you did,” Raven replied, her hood pulled up so it was harder to see her face in the afternoon sun. If asked, she’d probably say it was for the aesthetic, but Garfield knew her well enough to know it was because she didn’t want anyone to see if she let an emotion slip out onto her face in all the excitement. “Personally, I didn’t find Japan too different from America.”

That made Garfield laugh. “Of course you didn’t Raven! You spent the entire time in your room, the same thing you do back home. If you wanted to see how different it was, you would have had to go outside more.” That earned him a glare and Garfield knew he’d suffer more for that later, but that was Future Garfield’s problem. Thinking it over himself, he said, “I’ve gotta agree with Starfire, karaoke is way better over here. The private rooms beat crowded bars.” None of them asked how he knew what the inside of a bar was like.

Before Tim or Vic could give their own answers, some people walked up to them: Midoriya’s team, all of their assigned partners. The topic dropped as everyone said their final farewells. Tim and Midoriya made sure they had each other’s contact information, Shoji and Vic just shared a handshake, Starfire and Kaminari chatted with aimless small talk, and Uraraka clung to Raven with a hung, unable to help herself from tearing up at the mage’s departure.

That just left...”So, you going to write?” Jiro was looking at Garfield, clearly trying to look like she cared about all this less than she did. Still, even the earphone jack-earlobed hero in training’s will of steel couldn’t keep a slight blush from her cheeks.

Unfortunately, Garfield really couldn’t claim he was doing better. His blush stood out even more, what with his green skin for contrast. “Of course I will,” he said with a grin. “Maybe you can visit sometime! I know the Doom Patrol would love to meet you! Maybe over winter break? You can bring as many classmates as you want.”

Allowing herself a small smile, Jiro said, “I’ll consider it. But don’t be surprised if twenty teenagers come by to annoy you and your family.”

They were about to actually end it with a hug when Mr. Grayson called out, “Alright everyone, we’re late already, get on the ship!” Jiro settled for just thumping Garfield lightly on the shoulder, and he joined the rest of his class on the ship, ready to finally head back home. It had been a crazy trip to Japan, but he hadn’t been joking about inviting people over. After all, no one celebrated Christmas like Garfield’s family.

Twenty students sat on the ship, flying away from the school that had been their home for less than a month. Bonds were forged during that time that would last during their eventual hero careers.

After all, everyone loves a good team-up.


End file.
